Unit 2 Post

The article Understanding Health Literacy by Zarcadoolas article proposes a health literacy model that is characterized by four domain. The four domain are: Fundamental literacy, science literacy, civic literacy and cultural literacy. When I look at the definition of each of these domain that is mentioned in the article, I conclude that all four domain are of equal importance in increasing the health literacy of an individual or the society as a whole. I think its important to be educated and familiar with all aspects of the four domain because it just makes the process of communication between patients and health care provider for example a lot easier, than if a person is illiterate in any of the areas. In addition to making the communication between patients and provider easier, it also makes it easier for the people around the patient, like the people who support, live, and transport them. For example, my parents do not speak english well. As we are immigrants from a very different culture and language. So they do not even have the "Fundamental literacy" domain because my parents speak a different language than the language of their physician. My parents also have limited access and knowledge to the technology we have now a days, and that makes them also illiterate in the "Science Literacy" domain. And they also lack in the other two domain due to language barriers and different cultural upbringing as i mentioned before. So as their daughter i have to be the bridge between my parents' physicians and my parents. And this makes the process longer and not so easy to say the least. Because instead of working with only one schedule, we have to work with 3 different schedule. So if my parents were literate in all of the four domains, it would have been a lot easier and more convenient to all of us who are involved.