Understanding Health Literacy

Health Literacy Affects Everyone

Health literacy is important for everyone because, at some point in our lives, we all need to be able to find, understand, and use health information and services.

Taking care of our health is part of everyday life, not just when we visit a doctor, clinic, or hospital. Health literacy can help us prevent health problems and protect our health, as well as better manage those problems and unexpected situations that happen.

Even people who read well and are comfortable using numbers can face health literacy issues when

• They aren’t familiar with medical terms or how their bodies work.
• They have to interpret statistics and evaluate risks and benefits that affect their health and safety.
• They are diagnosed with a serious illness and are scared and confused.
• They have health conditions that require complicated self-care.
• They are voting on an issue affecting the community’s health and relying on unfamiliar technical information.

Why Do We Have a Health Literacy Problem in the U.S. and Many Other Countries?

When organizations or people create and give others health information that is too difficult for them to understand, we create a health literacy problem. When we expect them to figure out health services with many unfamiliar, confusing or even conflicting steps, we also create a health literacy problem.

How Can We Help People Now?

We can help people use the health literacy skills they have. How? We can

• create and provide information and services people can understand and use most effectively with the skills they have. See Develop and Test Materials.
• work with educators and others to help people become more familiar with health information and services and build their health literacy skills over time. See Collaborate.
• build our own skills as communicators of health information. See Find Training for free, online options.

Limited Health Literacy Reports and Evidence

People need information they can understand and use to make the best decisions for their health. “Limited health literacy” happens when people’s literacy and numeracy skills are poorly matched with the technical, complex, and unfamiliar information that organizations make available or health services are too complex and difficult to understand and use effectively.

Several reports document that limited health literacy affects many types of health conditions, diseases, situations, and outcomes, including health status and costs.

• Institute of Medicine’s health literacy report (2004)
• Roundtable on Health Literacy commissioned papers (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering & Medicine, various years)
• Surgeon General’s Workshop on Improving Health Literacy (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 2006)
• National Action Plan to Improve Health Literacy (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 2010)
• Health Literacy Interventions and Outcomes: An Updated Systematic Review (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality 2011)

Search the National Library of Medicine’s PubMed for the latest health literacy research.

The U.S. Department of Education published the only national data on health literacy skills in 2006. The study found that adults who self-report the worst health also have the most limited literacy, numeracy, and health literacy skills.

• The Health Literacy Of America’s Adults: Results from the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy

European Union countries have found similar health literacy skill issues in the European Health Literacy Survey [2.81 MB, 92 pages] (Source: Maastricht University 2012).

Are limited health literacy and limited literacy the same problem?

No, but they are related. People’s reading, writing and numbers skills are only a part of health literacy. People do need strong literacy and numeracy skills to make it easier to understand and use health information and services. But, research shows that many health and healthcare activities are unfamiliar, complicated, and technical to most people.

Learn More from Health Literacy Leaders

Listen to health literacy leaders describe their research and practice in podcasts (Source: Helen Osborne 2014).