Levels of health literacy are dependent on individual and systematic variables:
· Communication skills of lay persons and professionals
· Lay and professional knowledge on health topics
· Culture
· Demands of the healthcare and public health systems
· Demands of the situation and context
Health literacy affects people’s ability to navigate the healthcare system, share personal information, and understand mathematical concepts such as probability and risk. It affects one’s understanding of proper dosages and health risks of lifestyle choices and medications. Adults with low levels of health literacy can affect their children’s health and future literacy skills.
Numerical literacy is at the heart of health literacy skills. For example, calculating cholesterol and blood sugar levels, measuring medications and understanding nutrition labels require basic math skills. Ask yourself this, could you choose the best health care plan if you could not conceptualize nor make critical decisions about choosing between plans? Prescription and drug coverage requires calculating premiums, copays, and deductibles. Having advanced numeracal skills will promote higher levels of health literacy.
Beyond the basic mathematical aspects of health literacy, health literacy requires greater knowledge on health topics. People with limited health literacy often lack knowledge and information about the body as well as the nature and causes of disease. Without this knowledge, the relationships between diet, exercise and one’s lifestyle choices are misunderstood or ignored.
Health literacy is not an issue of the marginalized or the illiterate. Health literacy is an issue for everyone that uses modern medicine, has a health insurance plan, visits a doctor or depends on either an alternative or mainstream health care system.
THE FACTS are PLAIN and SIMPLE: HIGHER levels of HEALTH LITERACY can SAVE LIVES. According to the Partnership for Clear Health Communication, literacy skills are the strongest predictor of health status, more than age, income, employment status, level of education or racial/ethnic groups.
LISTEN
Listen to this podcast on Health Literacy by Helen Osborne available at: http://www.healthliteracyoutloud.com/2009/10/01/hlol-23-why-health-literacy-matters-a-podcast-with-many-voices/
GET INVOLVED
Health Literacy Wisconsin is a division of Wisconsin Literacy, a nonprofit coalition representing a membership of 62 community-based literacy agencies. They raise awareness of the importance of health literacy skills and foster two-way communications between health care consumers and health care providers. Visit their website at http://www.healthliteracywisconsin.org/ to learn more about what is being done in Wisconsin to advance health literacy, how you can become involved, and have your questions answered.
Blog Post Prepared by OCE Literacy Intern Casey Riesing.
[1] U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. 2000. Healthy People 2010. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Originally developed for Ratzan SC, Parker RM. 2000. Introduction. In National Library of Medicine Current Bibliographies in Medicine: Health Literacy. Selden CR, Zorn M, Ratzan SC, Parker RM, Editors. NLM Pub. No. CBM 2000-1. Bethesda, MD: National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
