An Exploration of Digital Health Literacy in Malaysia

Abstract

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines digital health literacy as the capacity to use electronic devices to acquire, seek, evaluate, and comprehend health information in order to improve health outcomes or to address a health concern. The recent technological advancement have made the globe more digital than ever before by allowing the populations to easily access the information on healthcare. In Malaysia, the rapid advancement in the digital information and communications technology (ICT) applications followed by the quick spread of the COVID-19 has similarly led to remarkable changes to the digital health literacy. In the wake of COVID-19, this chapter offers a timely analysis on the retrospective studies conducted in the area of digital health literacy. From this chapter, observations can be drawn on the supports given by the government to the people in their health-information seeking attempts so as to improve the overall digital health literacy.