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Defining Environmental Health Literacy

“Environmental Health Literacy” (EHL) is embraced as important for improving public health by preventing disability and disease from our environment. This study aimed to determine knowledge and skill items identified by Environmental Health (EH) professionals as being associated with EHL and to unde...

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Autores principales: Lindsey, Marti, Chen, Shaw-Ree, Ben, Richmond, Manoogian, Melissa, Spradlin, Jordan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8583686/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34770140
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182111626
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author Lindsey, Marti
Chen, Shaw-Ree
Ben, Richmond
Manoogian, Melissa
Spradlin, Jordan
author_facet Lindsey, Marti
Chen, Shaw-Ree
Ben, Richmond
Manoogian, Melissa
Spradlin, Jordan
author_sort Lindsey, Marti
collection PubMed
description “Environmental Health Literacy” (EHL) is embraced as important for improving public health by preventing disability and disease from our environment. This study aimed to determine knowledge and skill items identified by Environmental Health (EH) professionals as being associated with EHL and to understand how these items rank by importance. Such a coordinated effort to tease out skills and knowledge needed for EHL had not previously been made. We utilized a mixed-methods approach of semi-structured interviews of 24 EH professionals and a quantitative survey with 275 EH professionals across the United States. Interviews identified 37 skill and 69 knowledge items, which were used to create the survey questions. Survey results indicate 32 knowledge items and six skill items considered essential by >50% of respondents where consensus was reached between professional groups (chi square test: p > 0.05). We further identified six knowledge items, which >70% of EH professionals agreed were essential for EHL. The identification of these knowledge and skill items sets the stage for further research that includes exploring agreement with more diverse stakeholders, developing comprehensive measures of EHL and evaluation of methods and materials designed to improve EHL.
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spelling pubmed-85836862021-11-12 Defining Environmental Health Literacy Lindsey, Marti Chen, Shaw-Ree Ben, Richmond Manoogian, Melissa Spradlin, Jordan Int J Environ Res Public Health Article “Environmental Health Literacy” (EHL) is embraced as important for improving public health by preventing disability and disease from our environment. This study aimed to determine knowledge and skill items identified by Environmental Health (EH) professionals as being associated with EHL and to understand how these items rank by importance. Such a coordinated effort to tease out skills and knowledge needed for EHL had not previously been made. We utilized a mixed-methods approach of semi-structured interviews of 24 EH professionals and a quantitative survey with 275 EH professionals across the United States. Interviews identified 37 skill and 69 knowledge items, which were used to create the survey questions. Survey results indicate 32 knowledge items and six skill items considered essential by >50% of respondents where consensus was reached between professional groups (chi square test: p > 0.05). We further identified six knowledge items, which >70% of EH professionals agreed were essential for EHL. The identification of these knowledge and skill items sets the stage for further research that includes exploring agreement with more diverse stakeholders, developing comprehensive measures of EHL and evaluation of methods and materials designed to improve EHL. MDPI 2021-11-05 /pmc/articles/PMC8583686/ /pubmed/34770140 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182111626 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Lindsey, Marti
Chen, Shaw-Ree
Ben, Richmond
Manoogian, Melissa
Spradlin, Jordan
Defining Environmental Health Literacy
title Defining Environmental Health Literacy
title_full Defining Environmental Health Literacy
title_fullStr Defining Environmental Health Literacy
title_full_unstemmed Defining Environmental Health Literacy
title_short Defining Environmental Health Literacy
title_sort defining environmental health literacy
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8583686/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34770140
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182111626
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