October is Health Literacy Month
Every October, we celebrate Health Literacy Month — a time to recognize the importance of making health information easy to understand and the health care system easier to navigate. During this time, organizations and individuals promote the importance of understandable health information. Health Literacy Month brings awareness to breaking down the barriers of understanding.
Health literacy is the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions. Limited health literacy affects people of all ages, races, incomes, and education levels, but the impact of limited health literacy disproportionately affects lower socioeconomic and minority groups. It affects people’s ability to search for and use health information, adopt healthy behaviors, and act on important public health alerts. Limited health literacy is also associated with worse health outcomes and higher costs.
If someone struggles to understand health literacy, statistically, they are more likely to skip important medical tests, have a harder time living with conditions, and visit the emergency room more often. This is why understanding health literacy is so important for everyone.
Understanding health information has become essential in the past few months as we all struggle to get to grips with the meaning of terms such as fomites, shielding, and R0*. It’s been consistently shown that many people have problems reading and taking in health information, and the current pandemic has been stressful for everyone, which only adds to the problem, not least because we have been learning a new vocabulary as we go along.
Health Literacy in Healthy People 2030
Health literacy is a central focus of Healthy People 2030. One of the initiative’s overarching goals demonstrates this focus: “Eliminate health disparities, achieve health equity, and attain health literacy to improve the health and well-being of all.”
The Six Healthy People objectives — developed by the Health Communication and Health Information Technology Workgroup — are related to health literacy:
- Increase the proportion of adults whose health care provider checked their understanding
- Decrease the proportion of adults who report poor communication with their health care provider
- Increase the proportion of adults whose health care providers involved them in decisions as much as they wanted
- Increase the proportion of people who say their online medical record is easy to understand
- Increase the proportion of adults with limited English proficiency who say their providers explain things clearly
- Increase the health literacy of the population
How does Healthy People 2030 define health literacy?
Healthy People 2030 addresses both personal health literacy and organizational health literacy and provides the following definitions:
- Personal health literacy is the degree to which individuals have the ability to find, understand, and use information and services to inform health-related decisions and actions for themselves and others.
- Organizational health literacy is the degree to which organizations equitably enable individuals to find, understand, and use information and services to inform health-related decisions and actions for themselves and others.
These definitions are a change from the health literacy definition used in Healthy People 2010 and Healthy People 2020: “the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions.” The new definitions:
- Emphasize people’s ability to use health information rather than just understand it
- Focus on the ability to make “well-informed” decisions rather than “appropriate” ones
- Incorporate a public health perspective
- Acknowledge that organizations have a responsibility to address health literacy
Personal health literacy
Healthy People 2030’s definition of personal health literacy is aligned with the concept that people’s health literacy can be assessed at a given point in time. Such a definition is important for conducting both population studies and research on interventions aimed at ensuring equal access to information and services for people with limited literacy skills.
The new definition — with its emphasis on the use of health information and its public health perspective — may also prompt new ways of studying and promoting personal health literacy. In addition, it encourages efforts to address the skills that help people move from understanding to action and from a focus on their own health to a focus on the health of their communities.
Organizational health literacy
By adopting a definition for organizational health literacy, Healthy People acknowledges that personal health literacy is contextual and those producers of health information and services have a role in improving health literacy. The definition also emphasizes organizations’ responsibility to equitably address health literacy, in line with Healthy People 2030’s overarching goals.
In addition, including a definition for organizational health literacy in Healthy People aligns with the HHS National Action Plan to Improve Health Literacy.
Developing a Societywide Health Response
Development of health policy, programs, and financing must address the need for increased usability of health information and services. Much can be done to improve the following:
- Communication skills of health professionals
- Framing and knowledge of complex issues by the media and public health professionals
- Clarity and accuracy of health information
- Cultural and linguistic targeting of health information and services
- Public health infrastructure that facilitates and supports healthy behaviors
- Community, educational, and workplace infrastructures that facilitate and support access to
- health information
Observing Health Literacy Month
Use #HealthLiteracyMonth to post on social media. The good news is, many health care facilities are trying to improve the way they communicate with patients to make sure everything is clear before the patient leaves. They are doing things like simplifying their written materials, using video and photos to teach patients, and more to help doctors clearly get their message across. There are a few things you can do to improve your own health literacy, too.
- Improve your communication with health professionals. Make a list of your symptoms before you go in, have questions written down, and take a few notes when your doctor is explaining things to you.
- Make sure you know who to call with any questions when you leave.
- Attend health education programs at a library, community center, or anywhere you can find them in your community.
- Talk to local schools and request that kids are taught about health literacy and education so they are prepared as they get older.
*Fomites: objects or materials which are likely to carry infection, such as clothes, utensils, and furniture.
Shielding: clinically extremely vulnerable people were advised to take extra precautions during the peak of the pandemic in England, known as shielding
R0: a mathematical term that indicates how contagious an infectious disease is. It’s also referred to as the reproduction number.
Sources:
https://nationaldaycalendar.com/health-literacy-month-october/
https://health.gov/news/202010/october-health-literacy-month