Navigators and Health Literacy

Today in our foundations class we covered the concepts of health literacy, promotion and prevention. One thing I found very interesting was this concept of navigators. From my understanding this concept is going to involve non-profit environments where a client, most likely someone who struggles financially will come to the food pantry looking to receive food. In order to receive the essentials, this client is required to receive other services with one being an occupational therapy evaluation to assess ways to help the client to function independently. This pushes occupational therapists to be more active in the community and to educate individuals on occupational therapy services.

One other concept I learned today was on health literacy. Health literacy by the book is the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health info and services needed to make appropriate health decisions. This concept really relates back to the client-centered approach of occupational therapy. As therapists it is our job to effectively communicate the evidence and that is going to involve using simple language that is understandable to our client. In class we watched a video where individuals had low reading levels and the medical experts did not recognize or make adjustments to where the clients could understand what is going on. It really was a sad situation and emphasizes the major importance of effectively communicating to our clients.