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The Maternal Health Literacy of South Asian Newcomer Mothers and Canadian-born Mothers

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Date

2024-01-09

Authors

Khajeei, Dahlia

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Volume Title

Publisher

University of Waterloo

Abstract

Research suggests newcomer mothers score lower than Canadian-born mothers on health literacy (HL) and health numeracy (HN) assessments and have difficulty accessing maternal health services. This dissertation explored the nexus between language, language competencies, and the comprehension of health information by English-speaking, South Asian newcomer mothers (SANMs) and English-speaking, Canadian-born mothers, with a focus on learning. First, we conducted a scoping review using a systematic search strategy to identify conceptualizations of maternal health literacy (MHL) and HN according to the empirical research. Second, we employed narrative inquiry and used thematic analysis in conjunction with propositional analysis to explicate the verbalizations of mothers who shared stories about their comprehension of ultrasound examination preparation, health-risk information, and shared decision making. Third, we determined the accuracy of an explanatory model of qualities of MHL through an observation-oriented investigation of data from an online survey and used a non-parametric procedure to perform comparative analysis of responses. In study one, the final themes of the scoping review of MHL and HN conceptualizations were (i) sociocultural demographics, (ii) self-efficacy, (iii) communication, (iv) information seeking and operationalization, (v) health status, and (vi) reasoning. In study two, the results of the narrative inquiry suggested mothers demonstrate MHL through reifying, posturing, and volition. In study three, the results of the post-hoc analysis of survey data showed SANMs mothers are limited in their functional health literacy (FHL) compared to Canadian-born mothers. The collective contribution of the papers advocates for greater sociocultural linguistic measures of MHL in public health research to account for individual learning behavior.

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Keywords

health literacy, health numeracy, maternal health literacy, numeracy, public health, population health, South Asia, Canada, thematic analysis, spoken language processing, observation oriented modelling

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Citation

URI

http://hdl.handle.net/10012/20221

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Theses
Public Health Sciences (School of)