5530V - Health Literacy of Adults With Lifelong Communication Disability: Accessing, Understanding, Appraising, and Applying Health Information

People with lifelong communication disability often experience reduced health literacy. This paper presents a systematic review of 56 studies addressing one or more aspects of health literacy (i.e., ability to access, understand, appraise, or apply health information, and personal/environmental/systemic barriers and facilitators). Results were analysed and synthesised across the studies. Health literacy research with this group has primarily focussed on the competencies of accessing and understanding health information. Few research teams have evaluated how participants use health information in everyday contexts and significant gaps remain, particularly in appraising and using health information. In this paper, suggestions for future research are discussed along with ways to increase the involvement of people with lifelong communication disability in health literacy research.