Measuring Environmental Health Literacy

Abstract

Environmental health literacy (EHL) is an emerging framework that defines the knowledge and skills that prepare people to make health-protective decisions using available environmental data (Finn S, O’Fallon L. Environ Health Perspect 125(4):495–501 (2017)). According to the Society for Public Health Education (Society for Public Health Education. What is environmental health literacy? Retrieved from: http://www.sophe.org/environmentalhealth/key_ehl.asp (2014)), application of knowledge and skills is essential to achieving EHL, as evidenced in its definition of EHL as “the wide range of skills and competencies that people need in order to seek out, comprehend, evaluate, and use environmental health information to make informed choices, reduce health risks, improve quality of life and protect the environment.” Early research on EHL has focused on how people understand connections between environmental exposures and health and, to a more limited extent, on the ways that improving literacy can lead to policies or infrastructure developments that reduce environmental exposures (Gray KM. Int J Environ Res Public Health 15(3):466 (2018)).

The perspectives that inform this chapter include adult literacy, sociocultural theory, and the principles of community-based participatory research (CBPR). Understanding the elements of EHL and how they might be measured is bolstered by familiarity with a range of literacies, including science literacy, health / public health literacy, and environmental literacy; and the range or continuum of skills mastery embodied in EHL parallels the widely accepted representation of adult literacy (National Center for Education Statistics. What is NAAL? In: National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL). A nationally representative and continuing assessment of English language literary skills of American Adults. Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/naal/ (2003)). Additionally, the lens of sociocultural theory and constructivism, which has been applied nationally and internationally in educational research and practice (Amineh RJ, Asl HD. J Soc Sci, Lit Lang 1(1):9–16 (2015); Jacobson SK, McDuff MD, Monroe MC. Conservation education and outreach techniques. Oxford University Press, Oxford (2015); Liu CH, Matthews R. Intl Edu J 6(3):386–399 (2005)), provides a context for understanding the development of EHL. Its emphasis on learning through social interaction with more skilled instructors, who can be peers, and the influence of cultural context in learning, underscores the importance of culturally relevant instruction and materials and non-standard forms of assessment. Further, CBPR promotes active community involvement in the design and conduct of research and educational interventions; and its principles are grounded in commitment to active collaboration and participation from all partners at every stage of research (O’Fallon L, Dearry A. Environ Health Perspect 110:155–159 (2002)). Taken together, these perspectives suggest that EHL goes beyond understanding a specific environmental exposure to a broader understanding of the varied ways that the environment affects human health in community contexts.

This chapter begins with a description of five, critical literacies – adult, science, health, public health, and environmental – and approaches to measuring them, all of which inform the conception and measurement of EHL as discussed in this chapter. Research relevant to measuring EHL is described, including a section on culturally relevant measurement. The chapter concludes with implications for EHL measurement approaches going forward.