Nurses' contribution to organizational health literacy: a conceptual analysis informed by a focused mini-review

Organizational health literacy (OHL) shifts attention from individuals' health literacy (HL) skills to the ways healthcare organizations make information, services and care pathways accessible, understandable and usable. Nurses are central to health-related communication, education, care coordination and quality improvement, yet their contribution to OHL remains under-documented. This conceptual article develops a nursing-informed perspective on OHL, supported by a focused mini-review of recent studies. The review was used to identify illustrative examples of how OHL has been examined in nursing-relevant contexts, rather than to provide a comprehensive evidence synthesis. We argue that nurses may contribute to OHL by supporting clear communication, care navigation, shared decision-making, co-design of information resources, quality improvement and implementation of HL-sensitive systems. Mapping Nutbeam's functional, interactive and critical levels of HL to organizational responsibilities highlights how nursing practice can contribute not only to individual understanding, but also to system-level responsiveness and equity. Strengthening nurse-led OHL will require leadership support, workforce development, use of assessment tools, consumer partnership, and integration into quality, safety and accreditation structures.