Information horizons mapping to assess the health literacy of refugee and immigrant women

Introduction- Refugees and immigrants are at a heightened risk of many negative health outcomes. While strong health literacy ability may be a determinant of favorable health outcomes, assessing the health literacy of refugee and immigrant women is a challenge. Due to typically lower literacy and English ability, one possible method to measure the health literacy of this population is to ask them to graphically represent their health-related information horizons. Seventy-four women were asked to take a survey and answer open-ended questions about their HISB and demographic information, and then asked to create an information horizons map in the context of health information seeking. Each map was compared to the survey questions and specific questions that were asked to gauge the health literacy of the participants. The network of information resources for immigrant and refugee women was graphically displayed. Women who drew maps that were more complex had survey responses that correlated with higher health literacy. Refugee women were less aware of health information sources than other immigrant women. While more research is needed, this research provides evidence that information horizons mapping within a health information-seeking context may be predictive of health literacy. Copyright © 2018 by Association for Information Science and Technology