Health, back in your hands
OCTOBER marks World Health Literacy Month, with local medical professionals using the initiative to encourage the community manage their health more proactively.
Data reveals that proactive healthcare declined significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the uptake of these services remains slow, despite lifting restrictions.
Tanya Forster, the director of Macquarie Health Collective hopes this World Health Literacy Month serves as a nudge for people to consider what health means for them, and what services are available, no matter their background.
“COVID has been a challenging time for our community,” she told Dubbo Photo News.
“While our healthcare providers really have gone above and beyond to support our community, there have been elements of healthcare that have been challenging to provide.
“COVID also changed the focus for many people, and so many members of our community became less likely to access some of the proactive healthcare services that they otherwise would have accessed.”
At Macquarie Health Collective, cervical screenings were down almost 90 per cent, and skin checks down almost 70 per cent in 2021.
“We want to make sure we support people to try and prevent problems from occurring, rather than just managing them when they do,” Mrs Forster said.
“If there is one thing I could encourage our community to do this month, it would be to organise a check up with their GP and start a conversation.
“Learn to understand your health and what is available to you because you just never know the difference it could make for you.”
World Health Literacy Month is a 20-yearold global campaign that strives to elevate health literacy to achieve health equity.
Health literacy is defined as the degree to which individuals have the ability to find, understand, and use information and services to inform health-related decisions and actions for themselves and others.