Kidney Health for All: Bridging the gap in kidney health education and literacy

The high burden of chronic kidney disease (CKD), global disparities in kidney care, and poor outcomes of kidney failure bring a concomitant growing burden to persons affected, their families and carers, and the community at large. Health literacy (HL) is the degree to which persons and organisations have – or equitably enable individuals to have – the ability to find, understand and use information and services to make informed health-related decisions and actions for themselves and others. Rather than viewing HL as a patient deficit, improving HL largely rests with healthcare providers communicating and educating effectively in co-designed partnership with those with CKD. For kidney policy makers, HL provides the imperative to shift organisations to a culture that places the person at the centre of healthcare. The growing capability of and access to technology provides new opportunities to enhance education and awareness of CKD for all stakeholders. Advances in telecommunication, including social media platforms, can be leveraged to enhance persons’ and providers’ education; World Kidney Day declares 2022 as the year of Kidney Health for All to promote global teamwork in advancing strategies in bridging the gap in kidney health education and literacy. Kidney organisations should work toward shifting the patient-deficit HL narrative to that of being the responsibility of healthcare providers and health policy makers. By engaging in and supporting kidney health-centred policy making, community health planning and HL approaches for all, the kidney communities strive to prevent kidney diseases and enable living well with CKD.