Research/Report
Author(s): Alimatou Sarr, University of Michigan-Flint; Ari Alnimr, University of Michigan-Flint; Farah Alasbahi, University of Michigan-Flint; Stefanie Harsch, University of Education Freiburg; Emily Feuerherm, University of Michigan-Flint
In the 21st century, individuals – particularly migrant populations – require a range of skills to adapt to new circumstances, cope with change, and lead fulfilling lives. To effectively achieve this, good health literacy is beneficial and adult basic education is an ideal setting to promote health literacy among migrant populations. There is great diversity in the published literature around health literacy interventions for migrants globally, including specific regional contexts, target migrant populations, various health topics, and multiple intervention structures. These levels of diversity make it challenging to synthesize what is known about the health literacy needs of global migrant populations and the pedagogical effectiveness of the interventions that aim to promote health literacy. To understand this diversity we conducted a scoping review in the migrant health literacy intervention literature. We analyzed the articles according to the contexts and structures of the interventions, whether they employed formal, non-formal, or informal learning approaches, and whether they describe the linguistic and pedagogical features of the interventions. From this analysis, we derived recommendations for the planning and reporting of migrant health literacy interventions, and for increased exchanges between applied linguists, health care professionals, and adult educators to fill in the gaps.