Now more than ever, the COVID-19 pandemic has illustrated how one’s daily decisions impact not only personal health, but the health of friends, families and communities, according to Dr. Cheryl Vamos, USF College of Public Health (COPH) associate professor. 

Vamos served as principal investigator with a research team examining health literacy among health professional college students.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, health literacy is the degree to which individuals have the ability to find, understand and use information and services to inform health-related decisions and actions for themselves and others.

The research team also included: Dr. Jason Beckstead, COPH professor, Dr. Ellen Daley, COPH professor and associate dean of research and practice, Dr. Joseph Puccio, executive director of Student Health Services and associate professor of pediatrics at the USF Morsani College of Medicine, Dr. Sandra Vamos, associate professor at Western Michigan University and COPH graduate students (now alumni) Rumour Piepenbrink and Sharonda Lovett.

Their findings, “Examining the Associations Between COVID-19 Health Literacy and Health Behaviors Among Health Professional College Students,” earned Best Poster recognition at the national Health Literacy Annual Research Conference, held virtually in Nov. 2021.

“This population is in a unique professional and transitional phase where they are both recipients and agents of health literacy efforts—receiving and providing accessible, reliable and timely information and/or services to patients and community members,” Vamos said. “Receiving this award was very exciting. Not only does this work contribute to the science, but clearly and concisely communicating a study in a poster format at a national conference for health literacy can be particularly daunting!”   

In a survey of 144 health degree-seeking undergraduate and graduate students (most pursuing degrees from public health, nursing and medicine), the researchers found that health literacy was significantly correlated with a range of preventative and unhealthy behaviors, but not health care seeking behaviors.

Vamos said this study contributes to the evidence that health literacy impacts health behaviors, and in this case, COVID-19-preventive behaviors such as using face coverings and adhering to physical distancing guidelines.

However, Vamos says, among this population health literacy was not associated with health care seeking behaviors during the study period.

She said this could be because the majority of participants reported that they did not have a concern where they needed to receive health care for a particular reason (cold/flu, chronic-disease management such as asthma, STI need, injury or accident, etc.).

“There are limitations like there are for any study. This could be related to response bias of those who elected to complete the survey. This data was collected at one period of time and health behaviors as well as health care needs could have changed later on in the pandemic,” Vamos said. “However, what we know from studies among the general population is that many people did not access routine physicals, cancer screenings, contraceptive services and dental care due to fear of contracting COVID-19. They may have also had other life barriers and struggles, such as losing a job or having additional role obligations and strain due to remote work and caring for family members.”

The team is also analyzing other survey data collected, including the impact of the pandemic on mental health, academic learning experiences and future health-literacy training needs and preferences.

Vamos said the study highlights the need to take a critical look at how health-literacy training efforts could be bolstered among emerging health professionals.

“There is a great interprofessional opportunity to assure that all health students—regardless of their discipline or clinical or community focus—can synthesize and interpret available evidence, be comfortable consumers of epidemiological data, clearly communicate both what we know and do not know and empower those they interact with to make informed health decisions that are right for them. This should happen regardless if the health topic is an infectious disease, chronic disease or involves a health behavior such as physical activity, STI prevention, family planning and so on,” Vamos said.

Vamos said she sees public health as a bridge to translate existing and emerging evidence into practice.

“Health literacy is more than just ‘knowing,’ but also ‘doing.’ I’m very passionate about utilizing health literacy as key tool across all intervention points in the system—organizations, providers, patients and the community at-large—to facilitate knowledge, skills, motivation, health-promoting practices and the delivery of high-quality care. Health literacy is critical in all areas of public health, including research, practice and policy,” she said. “Health literacy is very aligned with the mission of public health, where collectively we need to assure healthy conditions. This includes providing information, tools and services in ways that are accessible, easy to understand and can facilitate people’s health decisions. And this is very much needed today where it is easy to get tangled up in the ‘infodemic,’ where there is too much information and misinformation.”

Story by Anna Mayor, USF College of Public Health