Department of Health Sciences and Medicine, University of Lucerne, 6002 Luzern, Switzerland.
Swiss Paraplegic Research, 6207 Nottwil, Switzerland.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021 Jun 23;18(13):6764. doi: 10.3390/ijerph18136764.
The overload of health information has been a major challenge during the COVID-19 pandemic. Public health authorities play a primary role in managing this information. However, individuals have to apply critical health literacy to evaluate it. The objective of this paper is to identify targets for strengthening critical health literacy by focusing on the field of argumentation theory. This paper is based on the textual analysis of instances of health information through the lens of argumentation theory. The results show that critical health literacy benefits from: (1) understanding the concept of argument and the supporting reasons, (2) identifying the main argument schemes, and (3) the knowledge and use of the main critical questions to check the soundness of arguments. This study operationalizes the main aspects of critical health literacy. It calls for specific educational and training initiatives in the field. Moreover, it argues in favor of broadening the current educational curricula to empower individuals to engage in informed and quality decision making. Strengthening individuals' critical health literacy involves interventions to empower in argument evaluation. For this purpose, argumentation theory has analytical and normative frameworks that can be adapted within a lay-audience education concept.
在 COVID-19 大流行期间，健康信息量过载已成为一个主要挑战。公共卫生当局在管理这些信息方面发挥着主要作用。然而，个人必须运用批判性健康素养来对其进行评估。本文的目的是通过关注论证理论领域，确定加强批判性健康素养的目标。本文基于通过论证理论视角对健康信息实例的文本分析。研究结果表明，批判性健康素养受益于：（1）理解论证的概念和支持理由，（2）识别主要论证模式，以及（3）主要批判性问题的知识和使用，以检查论证的合理性。本研究将批判性健康素养的主要方面具体化。它呼吁在该领域采取具体的教育和培训举措。此外，它还主张扩大当前的教育课程，使个人能够参与知情和高质量的决策。加强个人的批判性健康素养需要进行干预，以增强对论证评估的能力。为此，论证理论具有可在大众教育概念内进行调整的分析和规范框架。
