Health Literacy Concepts, Themes, and Research Trends Globally and in Latin America and the Caribbean: A Bibliometric Review.

(1) Background: Health literacy (HL) debates have increased significantly in the last two decades. HL concepts/themes and models have achieved substantial development in the US and Europe. Although there have been some efforts to develop HL in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), these seem to be few and scattered. This paper reviews and discusses developments of HL concepts and themes globally and in LAC over the last two decades. (2) Purpose: This study aimed to identify the prevalent health literacy concepts/themes deployed globally and in LAC as reported in academic journals from 2005 to 2022. We looked into which fields of knowledge have been informing HL research over the last decades. (3) Methods: We conducted a structured search on the Web of Science (WoS), Scopus, PubMed, and SciELO databases to extract the textual data for bibliometric analysis. We analyzed the textual data with VOSviewer and Biblioshiny to better understand health literacy themes and strands currently being researched in the LAC region. We conducted the searches in two periods: the first in May 2023 and the second in October 2023. (4) Results: The bibliometric study highlighted five WoS categories informing most HL global studies: (i) public environmental occupational health; (ii) environmental sciences; (iii) health policy services; (iv) health care science services; and (v) communication. The two predominant categories in LAC are public environmental occupation health and health policy services. Journals hosting HL publications come from these WoS categories. Themes in HL publications can be organized into four thematic clusters: (i) analytical (research designs, analytic techniques, and criteria for examining HL data); (ii) psychometric (measurement properties of data collection tools); (iii) pragmatic (practical issues related to implementing HL programs); and (iv) well-being (effectiveness of HL programs on mental health and illness treatment). (5) Conclusions: There is expanding interest in health literacy among scholars. The number of publications has increased substantially, particularly over the last five years. These are dominated by the Global North. The metrics show that LAC and Africa are trailing in publications. There is an emerging focus on adult literacy, functional/low health literacy, and their effect on improving capabilities, comprehension, and communication regarding health-related topics.

Daily food planning for families under Covid-19: combining analytic hierarchy processes and linear optimisation.

In many households, preparation of food in normal times proves to be problematic, particularly when parents endeavour to keep their children on a balanced diet. The COVID-19 pandemic has further exacerbated this problem imposing the requirement of social distancing, which led to disruptions in the food supply chain and multiplication of responsibilities faced by families with children. The present study revisits the standard "Diet Problem" to address these challenges and to develop a participatory approach to provide a diversified weekly meal plan that is easy and fun but simultaneously complies with the unique requirements of each participant. This is done by providing a novel framework, which combines linear optimisation with the Parsimonious Analytic Hierarchy Process, a method for individual choices. This novel approach to participatory modelling is tested within two young family settings in Brazil. The model produced through this contemporary framework provides a weekly menu that best meets expectations of the members of a young family in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Planetary Health and Health Education in Brazil: Towards Better Trained Future Health Professionals.

Brazil is Latin America's largest country and has a strong economy, but it is also characterised by many inequalities. These are very conspicuous in the health sector, particularly in health education, which is expected to modernise according to the planetary health (PH) perspective. This paper describes the health education scenario in Brazil and undertakes an analysis of the postgraduate health programmes and policies in place, identifying the extent to which these support the cause of PH. To achieve this goal, this paper deploys a bibliometric analysis to gain a better understanding of the research streams related to higher education and PH. In addition, it presents and discusses selected case studies in the field and cross-checks documents from the Brazilian Ministry of Education against five domains of PH in education. The results indicate that despite some progress to date and the fact that some programmes are in place, there is a perceived need for policies and efforts from education organisations towards connecting PH principles in the education of current and future health professionals.