Evidence map›Paper›PMID 39643941›Full record

ArticleGlobal health promotion2025

The dark side of the moon: can critical health literacy offer solutions to the fundamental problems of health literacy?

Susie Sykes, Stephan van den Broucke, Thomas Abel

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Global health promotion, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
3citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

3 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Article
  3. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors.

Susie SykesInstitute of Health and Social Care, London South Bank University, London, UK.ORCID 0000-0002-3758-2898
Stephan van den BrouckeInstitut de Recherche en Sciences Psychologiques, Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.ORCID 0000-0002-9090-8877
Thomas AbelInstitute of Social and Preventive Medicine, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.ORCID 0000-0001-6740-1149

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

This commentary is intended as a response to ongoing concerns expressed about fundamental limitations of current research, policy, and practice surrounding health literacy. These concerns emphasise the individualistic and reductionist approaches which often dominate health literacy work, as well as a neglect of broader structural factors in addressing pressing public health issues. The potential of critical health literacy as a concept and practical approach which responds to these critiques is presented. A case is made that critical health literacy, as a concept that operates at both the community and individual level, offers an opportunity to address and eventually overcome these basic limitations in current health literacy approaches.

Indexed as

Health LiteracyHumansPublic Healthcritical health literacyhealth literacysocial determinants of health

Identifiers

PMID39643941
PMCPMC12521758

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.