Adolescent Health Literacy and Learning offers insights to all those who care about promoting and assisting adolescent health development: health education teachers, health practitioners, and youth care workers. Adolescent health is of worldwide concern, especially as we learn that health habits and attitudes established in adolescence continue into adulthood. For example, chronic diseases such as diabetes that began in mid to late adulthood are becoming more prevalent in younger ages. Academics, clinicians and teachers are searching for ways to raise the health literacy and health outcomes of adolescents to better prepare them for the future. There is a need to raise the profile of adolescent health literacy and learning in order to address issues in adolescent and adult health. This edited volume features expert Canadian health literacy scholars writing on topics such as digital technology, software applications to health promotion, advertising, gender, suicide, nutrition, fitness, and mental health specifically for adolescents. It contains theoretical and practical ideas as well as resources for practitioners and educators to assist adolescents with interacting more critically with health information. The hope is that this book will help young people grow into adults who are more health literate. All contributing authors are experts in adolescent health literacy. Many take a uniquely Canadian perspective as well. They all acknowledge the impact of a variety of individuals and groups on adolescents, but also encourage the development of an adolescent's sense of individual identity, critical thinking, social responsibility and even activism as part of their health literacy.
Deborah L. Begoray, PhD, is a Professor of Language and Literacy in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, Faculty of Education, University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. She does literacy and health literacy teaching and research in a variety of contexts and with a wide range of learners especially adolescents. She also leads interdisciplinary project teams and works with pre service and in service teachers. Deborah is the lead recipient of both SSHRC and CIHR grants to support her research as a community engaged scholar. Deborah writes extensively on literacy research in Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities, both rural and urban, where she is currently looking at the use of adolescent-produced graphic novels as curricular resources and research dissemination tools. Her previous publications on health literacy include her work as lead editor of Health Literacy in Context: International Perspectives (2012) and lead author of Mediating Health: The Powerful Role of the Media as Adolescent Health Literacy Educator (2009).
Elizabeth M. Banister, RN, PhD, RPsych, is a Professor of Nursing in the School of Nursing, Faculty of Human and Social Development, University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Her research interests include knowledge translation, adolescent sexual health literacy, media health literacy, health education, and qualitative research design. She teaches advanced practice nurses a wide range of topics including health literacy and knowledge translation. She served on the Advisory Board for the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Institute of Gender and Health (IGH) for six years and has multidisciplinary research collaborations in Canada and New Zealand. Her publications focus on adolescent sexual health literacy, media health literacy, and gender and health in Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities. She is lead editor of Knowledge Translation in Context: Indigenous, Policy, and Community Settings (2011).
