Making Evidence-Driven Decisions

in a Media-Driven World

Every day, people get information about health and science from the internet, television, social media, magazines, radio, and other media. The amount of information can, at times, be overwhelming. It can be difficult to know what is accurate and trustworthy.

Making Evidence-Driven Decisions in a Media-Driven World is a set of curriculum modules—one for middle school and one for high school students—that help students develop the critical thinking skills to help them make sense of information from these different media sources. The lessons draw on aspects of health literacy, science literacy, and media literacy. With these skills, students will be better prepared to make decisions about issues that affect their health and other areas of their lives.

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How Does Health Literacy Link to Science and Media Literacy?

Making Evidence-Driven Decisions in a Media-Driven World brings together aspects of health, science, and media literacy. In particular, the lessons in these modules focus on helping students develop the skills of obtaining, analyzing, and understanding information. Although the lessons rely on health-related examples, the skills that students learn apply to many areas of life.

Click on each circle to see a definition for each type of literacy.

What is health literacy?

Health Literacy can be defined as the degree to which an individual has the capacity to obtain, communicate, process, and understand basic health information and services to make appropriate health decisions.

Reference: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2019) What is health literacy?

What is media literacy?
What is science literacy?

FAQs About Health Literacy

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Science and Health Literacy in the News

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Health Literacy

8/13/2019


Health literacy is the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information needed to make appropriate health decisions. Low health literacy is mor ...

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This experimental drug could change the field of cancer research

6/7/2022


A small trial using the drug dostarlimab yielded an unprecedented success rate in eliminating tumors. ...

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Health inequities and their causes

2/22/2018


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Do three new studies add up to proof of COVID-19’s origin in a Wuhan animal market?

2/28/2022


Preprints unlikely to end debate over how SARS-CoV-2 began the pandemic, but some scientists say lab-leak hypothesis has taken a “blow” ...

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COVID-19 Vaccines | NIH COVID-19 Research

8/2/2022


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The COVID lab-leak hypothesis: what scientists do and don’t know

6/8/2021


Nature examines arguments that the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 escaped from a lab in China, and the science behind them. ...

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Top 6 Reasons Why Clinical Trials Are Important - Cincinnati Children’s Blog


Without people participating in clinical trials, ground-breaking treatments like penicillin and diagnostic tools like mammograms would have never made it to clinical practice. To further awareness and ...

This project was supported by the Office of the Director, National Institutes of Health under Award Number R25OD020208. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

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