| Autor: |
Santos MG; Department of English, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA 94132, USA. mgsantos@sfsu.edu., Gorukanti AL; Department of Pediatrics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA. agorukan@stanford.edu., Jurkunas LM; American Language Institute, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA 94132, USA. ljurkuna@mail.sfsu.edu., Handley MA; Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA. Margaret.Handley@ucsf.edu.; Department of Medicine Division of General Internal Medicine, Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, San Francisco, CA 94110, USA. Margaret.Handley@ucsf.edu. |
| Abstrakt: |
Immigrant adolescents are the fastest-growing sector among U.S. youth, but they receive little attention in health literacy research. Immigrant adolescents are a diverse population tasked with mastering new literacies while also navigating new social systems. Many immigrant adolescents serve as important linguistic and cultural resources in their families and local communities, and yet their contributions (and struggles) as new navigators of our health care system remain invisible. In this commentary article, we argue that health literacy researchers need to devote more attention to immigrant adolescents and the pathways by which they learn new language and literacy skills while also developing their own health habits and behaviors. We contend that the study of immigrant adolescents provides a critical window into health literacy as a socially and historically situated practice, specifically how immigrant adolescents' transnational experiences shape their learning of new health literacy practices. With a coordinated interdisciplinary research agenda on immigrant adolescents, the health literacy field will expand its empirical base for what becoming "health literate" looks like in today's globalizing world. |
