Empowering Health Literacy in Sexual Health: Navigating Resources with Confidence
Health literacy matters, especially with regard to sex education, as social media is becoming one of the top resources for students.
The CDC (2021) divides health literacy by personal and organizational types. While I provide both definitions, personal health literacy is most applicable to this community. The CDC (2021) defines personal health literacy as “the degree to which individuals have the ability to find, understand, and use information and services to inform health-related decisions and actions for themselves and others.”
No matter what someone’s health literacy status is, everyone deserves accessible education, knowledge, and support to make informed decisions about their health, which includes sexual health, too.
People with lower health literacies are more likely than those with higher health literacies to use media, blogs, social media, and celebrities as reliable sources for health information—which is why it’s important to address this with IG.
While I do not condone, support, or partner with herpes coaches or herpes coaching in general, it is my job as an educator to empower you, my students, with accessible tools so you can critically analyze and navigate these resources for yourselves.
I am neither in competition with herpes coaches nor trying to steal their clients. I am simply passionate about empowering people to think critically about their sexual health and the resources they consume and invest in.
People with herpes deserve support from mentors and professionals who are educated about and understand an experience beyond their own and who are not looking to monetize off someone’s herpes diagnosis and subsequent mental health state.
Mentors and professionals do not necessarily need a fancy academic degree or doctoral title to do this, but they do need ethics, morality, and compassion.
I am so impacted by the stories you’ve shared about being taken advantage of by herpes coaches that I am creating a resource aimed to assist you in cultivating critical analysis and thought as it relates to your diagnosis and sexual and mental health supports. It will be free on IG—because you deserve the opportunity.