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Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Conference article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Conference article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Beyond radiation anxiety and country borders
T2 - applying health literacy in the field after the Fukushima nuclear disaster
AU - Goto, A.
AU - Lloyd Williams, A.
AU - Okabe, S.
AU - Murakami, M.
AU - Machida, M.
AU - Koriyama, C.
AU - Nollet, K.E.
PY - 2024/12/31
Y1 - 2024/12/31
N2 - The 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster placed health professionals and the public in the centre of an ‘infodemic’. We introduced health literacy training for health professionals to improve communication skills when facing a health crisis. By 2019, one in four public health nurses – our gatekeepers of community health – had been trained in Fukushima. Follow-up evaluations showed that the trained nurses applied their newly learned skills in practice, with more positive attitudes toward – and increased confidence in – their interactions with community residents. We also found that older residents and those unfamiliar with health services were more likely to notice improvements in written health information from the trained health workers. Health literacy training enhances communication between professionals and the public and makes health information more equitably accessible. This training has been incorporated into medical and nursing education, and also into primary school education, with participatory health-related activities for children in Fukushima and beyond. Our health literacy initiative covers the two arcs of health literacy: health professionals' ability to communicate health information and people's (including children's) ability to use the information.
AB - The 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster placed health professionals and the public in the centre of an ‘infodemic’. We introduced health literacy training for health professionals to improve communication skills when facing a health crisis. By 2019, one in four public health nurses – our gatekeepers of community health – had been trained in Fukushima. Follow-up evaluations showed that the trained nurses applied their newly learned skills in practice, with more positive attitudes toward – and increased confidence in – their interactions with community residents. We also found that older residents and those unfamiliar with health services were more likely to notice improvements in written health information from the trained health workers. Health literacy training enhances communication between professionals and the public and makes health information more equitably accessible. This training has been incorporated into medical and nursing education, and also into primary school education, with participatory health-related activities for children in Fukushima and beyond. Our health literacy initiative covers the two arcs of health literacy: health professionals' ability to communicate health information and people's (including children's) ability to use the information.
KW - Fukushima
KW - Health literacy
KW - aged
KW - anxiety
KW - child
KW - communication skill
KW - conference paper
KW - epidemiology
KW - follow up
KW - Fukushima nuclear accident
KW - health care personnel
KW - health literacy
KW - health practitioner
KW - health service
KW - human
KW - infodemic
KW - interpersonal communication
KW - male
KW - medical information
KW - nurse
KW - nursing education
KW - primary school
KW - radiation
KW - resident
U2 - 10.1177/01466453241283931x
DO - 10.1177/01466453241283931x
M3 - Conference article
VL - 53
SP - 155
EP - 158
JO - Annals of the ICRP
JF - Annals of the ICRP
SN - 0146-6453
IS - Suppl. 1
ER -