Health Literacy Assignment

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Health Literacy Assignment

Section One

Question Number 1

While growing up with strict and authoritative parents I have learned a great deal about thedos and don’ts since an early age. Therefore, messages regarding drug usage and substance abuse have been critically conveyed in my family by my parents, uncles and aunts. They were very strongly against drug abuse and had strict laws in our home regarding any kind of drug usage. However, when I grew up, my friends, who had lenient or not at all strict families, were most likely to enjoy such stuff and it gave me a message that drugs are not that harmful after all. Further, awareness through media gave me a clear message regarding the ill-use of drugs and medicines, i.e., anti-depressants, morphine etc., are harmful for the health and wellbeing of a person and these are increasingly discouraged in our society; however still used in increase amounts in the society (McCormack, p.13).

Question Number 2

The social and environmental factors helped shaping the affirm beliefs, behaviors and attitudes against the illicit use of drugs, alcohol and substance in my personal life (McCormack, p.9). I grew up in a strict environment, but I have many friends who are drug addicts. Still these circumstances were also not able to shake my belief system, it made my beliefs more rigid and strong; hence, I lost all the urge of trying or doing drugs in my entire life. I still believe, now not just because of my parents, but solely as an objective opinion that drugs are of no good to anyone in our society and they bring more destruction than good. I haven’t seen any drug abuser living a successful and happy or content life. This really scares me to my core that one day if I might use drugs and abuse my body with its effects, I might end up becoming a street beggar or a burglar. it was taught to me by my parents that when a person uses drugs, he ends up living on streets like beggars.

Question Number 3

My friends and peers pressurized me to drink or do drugs whenever we are out on a party, but I and my best friend are always so affirmed of not harming ourselves. Hence it is a true example of alignment of my belief system with my behavior or attitude towards drugs. I had started disliking drugs at a very early age, but now this dislike has turned into hate and firmness against drug usage, whether it is of any type. The reason is that I soon started looking at the world with an objective perception and it gave me an insight to the harm caused by substance use and abuse.

Section Two

Question Number 1

‘Neurobiology of addiction: a neurocircuitry analysis’ by George F Koob and Nora D Volkow.

Question Number 2

The three key points in the article are as follows:

Drug addiction is caused due to the alterations in neurochemical reactions and functions which occur due to usage of drugs and substance (Koob, and Volkow, np).

It causes a drastic dysregulation of circuits in the brain involved for motivation and habit formation.

The chemistry of withdrawal difficulty from addiction is due to disruption in the chemical activity of different brain parts.

Question Number 3

Accuracy

It is a peer-reviewed article published in the database of National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) and it is published on the page of PMC US. National Library of Medicine, and National Institute of Health. There are various other reliable sources that can verify the source of this page. There are no apparent grammatical or spelling errors as it is a published journal article. A proper reference list is given at the end of the article and in-text citation is provided completely(Koob, and Volkow, np).

Authority

PMC is a credible source like PubMed. The NCBI is a home for series of relevant biotechnology and biomedicine databases, and it is a significant resource of tools and services for bioinformatics. The director of this site is David Lipmann and he is the author of BLAST sequence program of alignment. The domain name of this database is ‘nlm.nih.gov.’ hence it is supported by government.

Bias/Objectivity

The information in the article is portraying the information related to addiction from the viewpoint of neurobiology. The webpage is governmental so the data included is authentic. It is not an advertisement or linked to any advertisement. It is an informational and educational scholarly article. There is no use of fonts, graphics or verbiage play to the emotions. The information is provided plainly.

Currency/Timelessness

The publication is given with a proper date and updated time and links given in the article work properly without any breakage. It is a new study, published back in August, 2016, but updated in September 2018.

Coverage

The information provided in the article is complete and with proper referencing. No information provided is just assumed or declared without proper proof. The neurobiology of addiction is completed educated in this article with defined anatomy and neurochemistry. The sources for additional information are properly mentioned and cited.

Work Cited

McCormack, Lauren, et al. "Improving low health literacy and patient engagement: a social ecological approach." Patient education and counseling 100.1 (2017): 8-13.

Koob, George F., and Nora D. Volkow. "Neurobiology of addiction: a neurocircuitry analysis." The Lancet Psychiatry3.8 (2016): 760-773.