Most of us need better health literacy
If your child needed to see a specialist, do you know how to navigate getting referrals and scheduling appointments through online portals?
If you have surgery and need to change your bandages, can you follow your doctor’s instructions? What about calculating the dose for your toddler’s acetaminophen? Or talking to your doctor about the treatment options for a cancer diagnosis?
All of these activities require health literacy.
Personal health literacy is when individuals are able to find, understand and use information and services to make health-related decisions for themselves and others in their care.
Health literacy should be for everyone, but studies consistently show that many people have trouble reading, understanding and acting on health information. Research shows that some of the lowest rates of health literacy can be found in minority populations, people who are on Medicaid and elderly people.
In 2000, Don Nutbeam, a public health professor at the University of Sydney, Australia, proposed a threelevel health literacy framework to help researchers understand the levels of health literacy.
The first level, functional health literacy, requires that an individual can read and understand health information presented and understand how to navigate simple health care systems.
The second level, communicative/ interactive health literacy, focuses on interaction with the information and with others. At this level, a person can use the information gathered, consumed and understood to have a twoway conversation about treatment options.
At the third level, critical health literacy skills, individuals possess advanced literacy, cognitive and social skills to analyze information and make informed decisions. This is also the level needed to effectively engage policy and advocacy efforts.
Health literacy is essential to obtaining care. Studies have linked poor levels of health literacy to poor outcomes, and efforts to increase health literacy are ongoing in hospitals around the nation. October is Health Literacy awareness month and a time to consider how we can do better to help individuals find, understand and apply health information.
Health literacy is tied to general literacy. Improving general education and teaching young people to gather, read and apply information is an essential strategy for increasing health literacy.
From the systems and health care expert perspective, everyone in health care has a responsibility to provide information that is clear and easy to understand. Using plain language – clear, concise, easy to understand – and appropriate reading levels go a long way in ensuring functional health literacy. Using videos and other multimedia media approaches to provide health information is also important to reaching patients with varied levels of health literacy.
Additionally, using the teach back method, where the health care provider offers information and asks the patient to explain it back to them, ensures comprehension while improving health literacy and increasing the likelihood of sticking with a treatment plan.
Furthermore, additional research in health literacy can help us understand the gaps in education, how exactly health literacy and outcomes are connected. Supporting health literacy research can help make sure that health literacy, and health care, is for everyone.
Abbie Roth is managing editor of Pediatrics Nationwide and Science Communication at Nationwide Children's Hospital.