KIDNEY HEALTH FOR ALL: BRIDGING THE GAP IN KIDNEY HEALTH EDUCATION AND LITERACY.
Robyn G. LANGHAM1, Kamyar KALANTAR-ZADEH2, Ann BONNER3, Alessandro BALDUCCI4, Li-Li HSIAO5, Latha A. KUMARASWAMI6, Paul LAFFIN7, Vassilios LIAKOPOULOS8, Gamal SAADI9, Ekamol TANTISATTAMO2, Ifeoma ULASI10 and Siu-Fai LUI11 for the World Kidney Day Joint Steering Committee12.
1St. Vincent’s Hospital, Department of Medicine, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 2Division of Nephrology, Hypertension and Kidney Transplantation, Department of Medicine, University of California Irvine School of Medicine, Orange, California, USA, 3School of Nursing and Midwifery, Griffith University, Southport, Queensland, Australia, 4Italian Kidney Foundation, Rome, Italy, 5Brigham and Women's Hospital, Renal Division, Department of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, 6Tamilnad Kidney Research (TANKER) Foundation, The International Federation of Kidney Foundations - World Kidney Alliance (IFKF - WKA), Chennai, India, 7International Society of Nephrology, Brussels, Belgium, 8Division of Nephrology and Hypertension, 1st Department of Internal Medicine, AHEPA Hospital, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece, 9Nephrology Unit, Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University, Giza, Egypt, 10Renal Unit, Department of Medicine, College of Medicine, University of Nigeria, Ituku-Ozalla. Enugu, Nigeria, 11International Federation of Kidney Foundations – World Kidney Alliance, The Jockey Club School of Public Health and Primary Care, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China, and 12The World Kidney Day Joint Steering Committee is listed in the Appendix.
ABSTRACT
The high burden of kidney disease, global disparities in kidney care, and poor outcomes of kidney failure bring a concomitant growing burden to persons affected, their families, and carers, and the community at large. Health literacy is the degree to which persons and organizations have or equitably enable individuals to have the ability to find, understand, and use information and services to make informed health-related decisions and actions for themselves and others. Rather than viewing health literacy as a patient deficit, improving health literacy largely rests with health care providers communicating and educating effectively in codesigned partnership with those with kidney disease. For kidney policy makers, health literacy provides the imperative to shift organizations to a culture that places the person at the center of health care. The growing capability of and access to technology provides new opportunities to enhance education and awareness of kidney disease for all stakeholders. Advances in telecommunication, including social media platforms, can be leveraged to enhance persons’ and providers’ education; The World Kidney Day declares 2022 as the year of “Kidney Health for All” to promote global teamwork in advancing strategies in bridging the gap in kidney health education and literacy. Kidney organizations should work toward shifting the patient-deficit health literacy narrative to that of being the responsibility of health care providers and health policy makers. By engaging in and supporting kidney health–centered policy making, community health planning, and health literacy approaches for all, the kidney communities strive to prevent kidney diseases and enable living well with kidney disease.
KEYWORDS: Educational gap, Empowerment, Health literacy, Health policy, Information technology, Kidney health, Partnership, Prevention, Social media.
Corresponding author: Robyn G. Langham, MBBS, PhD, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Tel: +61 414851892. E-mail: rlangham@unimelb.edu.au
Reprints: Ekamol Tantisattamo, Division of Nephrology, Hypertension and Kidney Transplantation, Department of Medicine, University of California Irvine School of Medicine, 101 The City Drive South, Orange, California 92868, USA. Tel: +1-714-456-5142. Fax: +1-714-456-6034. E-mail: etantisa@hs.uci.edu
Brunei Int Med J.2022;18:51-62