Health literacy in the roma population

Abstract

This article examines health literacy in the Roma population. The goal of the authors was to analyze, through a literature review, which aspects of health literacy of the Roma have been studied by researchers. The research was carried out as an analysis of original scientific papers examining “health literacy in the Roma” found via the EBSCO Discovery Service, PubMed and Scopus databases, based on a keyword search for “health literacy” and “Roma”. Based on the analysis described above, the following topics were included: (1) perception of one’s own health – subjective and objective criteria, subjective perception of one’s own health; (2) the Roma concept of a “healthy person”; (3) objectively perceived health status of the Roma population; (4) health literacy; (5) education as a fundamental aspect of health literacy; (6) knowledge about health (also an aspect of health literacy) and preventive behaviors; (7) health care for Roma; (8) the experiences of Roma relative to healthcare and social care systems. The analysis of published papers showed that there are certain aspects of health literacy among Roma, which can be reorganized into fewer, but more inclusive, categories, i.e., (1) perception of one’s own health (objective and subjective); (2) health literacy education; (3) knowledge about health and preventative behavior; (4) health care. It is obvious that the weakest link in health literacy among Roma is health literacy education, which is also the key to improving health literacy.