INFLUENCE OF MATERNAL HEALTH LITERACY ON CHILD PARTICIPATION IN SOCIAL WELFARE PROGRAMS

INFLUENCE OF MATERNAL HEALTH LITERACY ON CHILD PARTICIPATION IN SOCIAL WELFARE PROGRAMS
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In America, more than ninety million adults have their health literacy levels classified as being low. This means, they are unable to read and understand information relating to healthcare and cannot follow the instructions thereof for treatment. Due to the health literacy demands of the application process into programs meant to improve the health of children, under-enrolment has been recorded. The program includes assistance in terms of cash, food and housing. According to the research carried out, it was found out that mothers whose health literacy levels would be classified as poor, had a less likelihood of receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) as compared to those whose literacy levels would be classified as being adequate. It was also found that programs such as those aimed at offering nutritional assistance to women, infants and children whose procedures for enrollment was much more streamlined and institutionalized recorded higher rates of enrollment. The less health-literate mothers had a tendency therefore to avoid enrollment into programs whose procedures of enrollment were fragmented and complex (Pati et al. 2010).
However, in this research, there are factors which are not clear and therefore pose difficulty in establishing the connection between the participation of the child in welfare programs and the maternal health literacy. First, the study failed to analyze the literacy levels that the application process into the programs demanded of the mothers. The study assumed that the programs whose application procedures seemed fragmented and more complex demanded higher health literacy levels than programs whose application procedures were more streamlined and institutionalized. According to Kickbusch (2008), health literacy enables a perso...