Objective: Community health assessments have typically not measured health literacy at the community level. We developed the Community Health Literacy Assessment (CHLA) framework to describe county and regional health literacy activities, assets, gaps, and opportunities in Maryland.
Methods: We implemented the CHLA framework in Maryland from January to August 2018. We conducted an environmental scan of Maryland's 24 counties to identify community resources, health indicators, and organizations. We targeted local health improvement coalitions and health departments for interviews in each county. We conducted qualitative interviews to understand what key community organizations throughout Maryland are doing to implement health literacy best practices and policies. We used summative content analysis to review, quantify, and interpret interview data.
Results: We conducted 57 interviews with participants from 56 organizations representing all 24 counties in Maryland. We captured data on multiple dimensions of health literacy and identified 3 main themes: health literacy assets and activities, health literacy gaps, and health literacy opportunities. The most cited asset was collecting data to inform health literacy practices, the most cited gap was using jargon with community members, and the most cited opportunity was increasing public awareness of existing health programs through improved outreach and teaching health information-seeking behaviors.
Conclusion: A systematic community health literacy assessment is a feasible way to collect a large amount of health literacy data, which can inform strategic planning, determine community interventions, and ultimately lead us toward a health-literate society. We recommend that others replicate the CHLA framework to operationalize health literacy as a health indicator and include it as a community health assessment measure.
Keywords: community health assessment; community health literacy assessment; health literacy; public health; systematic framework.