Translational Issues in Psychological Science, Vol 8(2), Jun 2022, 197-209; doi:10.1037/tps0000325
Socioecological approaches to communication consider people’s language behaviors as nested within multilevel sociocultural systems. In contrast, psycholinguistic approaches consider people’s language behaviors as a collection of person-specific experiences and capacities (Itzhak et al., 2017). Both approaches are relevant to understanding real-world communicative needs, such as health literacy in multilingual settings. While health literacy in a first (L1) or second language (L2) is crucial for comprehending health information, the precise determinants that influence health literacy (e.g., text characteristics, reader characteristics, and multilayered socioecological context) remain unclear, particularly for people living within language-discordant contexts (i.e., where the language of the environment differs from one’s L1). To address these issues, we review health literacy as it pertains to multilingualism and emphasize the relevance of psycholinguistic studies of written language processing, individual differences in L1 and L2 reading skills, and language experience. Our goal is to synthesize information that could be useful for maximizing health literacy and reducing linguistic barriers, by expanding upon existing health literacy frameworks to the domain of multilingualism. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)