Special Issue | Digital Health Literacy
Guest Editors: Ines Spielvogel (Medical University of Vienna), Sonja Radjenovic (Medical University of Vienna), Lara Schreurs (KU Leuven), & Raffael Heiss (MCI Management Center Innsbruck)
In today’s digital media environments (e.g., search engines, social media platforms, AI chatbots, telemedicine, mobile applications), digital health literacy constitutes a crucial determinant of how individuals access, engage with, consume, and evaluate digital health communication messages (Fitzpatrick, 2023; Arias López et al., 2023). Expanding traditional frameworks, digital health literacy encompasses not only functional skills, but also evaluative, critical, algorithmic, and navigational competencies required to address the diverse processing challenges encountered in digital environments (Engel et al., 2025; Paige et al., 2018; van der Vaart & Drossaert, 2017). Depending on the type of health content encountered, different cognitive, affective, and social processes are activated. These processes are central to how individuals attend to, interpret, evaluate, and respond to digital health communication messages.
In digital environments characterized by information abundance, attention determines which health messages are processed at all. Emotionally arousing or socially endorsed content—such as highly liked or widely shared posts—tends to capture attention irrespective of evidentiary quality (Luo et al., 2022; O’Donnell et al., 2023). Because working memory capacity is limited, complex information may hinder comprehension and recall, whereas repetition and vivid narratives can enhance memorability—even when misleading (Lewandowsky et al., 2012; Meppelink et al., 2016). Under cognitive load, individuals frequently rely on heuristic cues such as source familiarity, popularity indicators, or professional design rather than systematically evaluating evidence (Chang et al., 2023; Ecker et al., 2022; Hong & Kim, 2020). Social norms, influencer communications, and emotional responses—particularly fear and anxiety—further shape appraisal and information use (Freeman et al., 2023; Shi et al., 2022; Soroya et al., 2021). These mechanisms highlight the close relationship between digital health literacy and health communication processes, as both message characteristics and audience competencies influence how health information is interpreted and acted upon. In this sense, psychological mechanisms might be understood both as contextual constraints that hinder digital health literacy activation and as targets of literacy itself: Being digitally health literate may for instance include the ability to actively manage cognitive load or control emotional and social responses when encountering or actively seeking health information online. Additionally, these challenges raise important questions about how digital environments and platforms can be designed.
Existing research furthermore demonstrates that digital health literacy varies substantially across populations and target groups. In this light, young people report high digital confidence but experience difficulties in evaluating credibility and identifying commercial interests (Dadaczynski et al., 2021; Ishikawa et al., 2025; Stauch et al., 2025; Taba et al., 2022). Older adults, in contrast, may face lower literacy levels due to cognitive load, sensory limitations, and lower technological familiarity (Choi et al., 2021; Estrela et al., 2023; Li et al., 2025). Moreover, sexual and gender minority (LGBTQ+) individuals, migrants, and ethnic minorities often rely on digital resources to compensate for barriers in healthcare access, yet may encounter language challenges, institutional distrust, stigmatizing misinformation, or algorithmic biases (Augustaitis et al., 2021; Romanelli et al., 2025; Whitehead et al., 2023). Additionally, people with low socioeconomic status, chronic illness, or disabilities remain at risk of digital exclusion and difficulties in appraising online health information (Stormacq et al., 2023; Wamala Andersson & Gonzalez, 2025). Finally, individuals with elevated health anxiety may develop maladaptive search behaviors such as cyberchondria, characterized by repetitive online searching that amplifies uncertainty and fear (McMullan et al., 2019; Schenkel et al., 2021).
Taken together, previous findings highlight the need to conceptualize digital health literacy as a multidimensional, process-oriented construct that shapes how diverse populations process digital health communication messages and translate it into health-related outcomes (e.g., health behaviors, mental and physical health indicators, empowerment, self-efficacy, and trust in digital health tools and institutions). Given these processing challenges and the diverse digital health literacy profiles across populations and target groups, there is also a growing need for interventions and strategies that strengthen digital health literacy and improve health-related outcomes. Such interventions may for instance target individual competencies (e.g., digital skills training or tailored applications), educational settings (e.g., school- or university-based programs), healthcare organizations, or community contexts and may also involve the design, tailoring, and evaluation of effective health communication strategies and messages that support individuals in navigating, understanding, and using digital health information.
Scope and Aims of the Special Issue
We invite submissions that contribute to the multidimensional conceptualization of digital health literacy and address the variety of components—such as evaluative, navigational, and context-specific competencies, as well as cognitive, emotional, and social processing mechanisms. We also welcome empirical research that examines these multidimensional aspects of digital health literacy and explores the role of health communication in shaping, facilitating, or moderating these processes and outcomes. We therefore particularly encourage research investigating the following topics, although submissions are not limited to these areas:
- The design and evaluation of health-literate digital environments and platforms;
- Differences in digital health literacy across diverse populations and target groups;
- Psychological mechanisms and self-regulatory dimensions of digital health literacy, also including maladaptive or strained forms of digital health information engagement (e.g., cyberchondria, repetitive searching, avoidance behaviors);
- Interventions to strengthen both digital health literacy and health-related outcomes, including individual- and community or population-level strategies.
Theoretical and Methodological Contributions
The Special Issue invites:
- Original empirical research employing quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods approaches, including experimental and longitudinal designs, rigorous intervention and evaluation studies;
- Theoretical and conceptual contributions that advance understanding of digital health literacy as a multidimensional and process-oriented construct;
- Methodological innovations in measuring digital health literacy and digital information processing;
- Systematic reviews and meta-analyses synthesizing existing evidence.
Interdisciplinary contributions integrating communication science, public health, psychology, sociology, and health informatics are strongly encouraged.
Submission Format
We welcome submissions that fit any of the EJHC formats: original research papers, theoretical papers, methodological papers, review articles, brief research reports. For further information on the article types, please see http://www.ejhc.org/about/submissions.
Manuscripts should be prepared in accordance with the EJHC author guidelines and be submitted via the journal website.
Deadline for submission is 30 November 2026.
Review Process
All articles will undergo a rigorous peer review process. Once the paper has been assessed as appropriate by the editorial management team (with regard to form, content, and quality), it will be peer-reviewed by at least two reviewers in a double-blind review process, meaning that reviewers are not disclosed to authors, and authors are not disclosed to reviewers. To ensure short publication processes, EJHC releases articles online on a rolling basis, expected to start in June 2027.
European Journal of Health Communication
The European Journal of Health Communication (EJHC) is a peer-reviewed open access journal for high-quality health communication research with relevance to Europe or specific European countries. The journal aims to represent the international character of health communication research given the cultural, political, economic, and academic diversity in Europe.
Contact Guest Editors and Links
Ines Spielvogel, Medical University of Vienna: ines.spielvogel@meduniwien.ac.at
Sonja Radjenovic, Medical University of Vienna: sonja.radjenovic@meduniwien.ac.at
Lara Schreurs, KU Leuven: lara.schreurs@kuleuven.be
Raffael Heiss, MCI Management Center Innsbruck: raffael.heiss@mci.edu
Journal website: www.ejhc.org
Journal e-mail address: contact@ejhc.org
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