Pharmacists and literacy
November 10, 2011
A HEALTH literacy project funded
under the Fifth Community
Pharmacy Agreement Research and
Development Program, is now set
to commence.
The aim of the project is to
discover what role community
pharmacy can play in improving
consumer understanding of health
information.
The project will see the
development, piloting and
refinement of an educational
package for pharmacists and
pharmacy assistants around health
literacy to enable them to
communicate information to
consumers better.
The research will be headed up by
Gregory Duncan from Monash
University, and will include input
from a multi-disciplinary consortium
including the Pharmaceutical
Society of Australia, the University
of Queensland, Sydney University
and Curtin University.
The importance of the research,
according to the PSA, lies in the fact
that there is a proven link between
low literacy and poor health.
“Health literacy is important and
it is fundamental for consumers to
be able to find, understand and use
health information in order to make
decisions about their own health
and wellbeing,” said National
President of the Pharmacy Guild of
Australia, Kos Sclavos.
“Community pharmacies are
often the first point of contact for
consumers to gather information
about medicines and other health
information, which is why the
health literacy project is so
important,” he added.
It is hoped that the project will
be completed around mid 2014.
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