October is National Health Literacy Month. Health literacy refers back to the skill of individuals to search out, perceive, and use data and companies to make knowledgeable health-related selections and actions for themselves and others.
In this Mayo Clinic Minute, Dr. Angela Mattke, a pediatrician with Mayo Clinic’s Children’s Center, explains how Mayo Clinic is main the best way to reinforce health literacy for teenagers by participating books to tell and encourage younger folks.
Journalists: Broadcast-quality video (1:07) is within the downloads on the finish of this publish. Please courtesy: “Mayo Clinic News Network.” Read the script.
Developing private health literacy — which is the flexibility to search out, perceive, and use health-related data and companies — is one thing that may start early in life.
“Mayo Clinic is truly an expert in healthcare. And we have an opportunity to be there talking with children, getting them excited about their health and empowering them to have agency over their own health and the health of their communities,” says Dr. Mattke.
Dr. Mattke says these kinds of books present accessible data on a variety of health and science-related subjects.
“I think there’s a lot of health topics that children struggle to understand — anything from immunizations to why they’re feeling sick, especially when children have serious and complex diseases,” says Dr. Mattke.
Understanding their illness will help them really feel empowered and educated about how they’ll take part of their care. But it is not simply youngsters with critical health circumstances that may profit from this schooling.
“My children have read all these books and have read them multiple and multiple times. And so, they can help understand these diseases. It’s inspiring their passion to learn more about science and learn more about health,” says Dr. Mattke.
Which is one other purpose of selling health literacy in youngsters.
“We need to get kids interested in STEM — science, engineering, technology and medicine. And these are really important topics. And so, we’re bringing these topics to kids to get them interested at an early age and inspire that passion.,” says Dr. Mattke.
