The Ophelia (OPtimise HEalth LIteracy and Access) process : using health literacy alongside grounded and participatory approaches to develop interventions in partnership with marginalised populations

This paper seeks to explore the potential of a newly developed, grounded and participatory approach to development of health-literacy and health-care access interventions for equity – the Ophelia (OPtimising HEalth LIteracy and Access) process (Batterham et al., 2014). The methodology involves undertaking a needs assessment of the target population using intensive qualitative and quantitative methods, developing vignettes of key sub-groups within the population based on their health literacy profile of strengths and weaknesses, and then engaging with frontline practitioners and community membersin developing realistic solutions (Batterham et al., 2014).