October is Health Literacy Month. To help raise awareness, the Oregon Patient Safety Commission joins organizations and individuals across the country to promote the importance of making health information understandable for everyone.

Health literacy is defined as “the degree to which an individual has the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services to make appropriate health decisions” (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, Title V).

Individual and system factors that hinder health literacy include a person’s culture, language skills and education, as well as the communication skills of medical professionals. In the United States, only 12 percent of adults have the health literacy skills needed to navigate and manage their healthcare safely and effectively.¹ Studies show that people who experience limited health literacy are less likely to use preventative services and are more likely to have chronic conditions and make frequent hospital visits. 

According to the Journal of Health Communications, research shows that a person’s level of health literacy hinges on understanding three elements of health information:

1. The medical condition or disease.

2. The reasons a specific treatment has been selected for them.

3. The appropriate behaviors and use of treatments that can improve their condition while minimizing the risk of side effects.

How health information is shared, understood, and used should not depend on the skills or efforts of patients. Everyone involved in healthcare delivery can take basic steps to help improve health literacy and, ultimately, reduce the risk of serious adverse events and encourage a culture of patient safety. By recognizing the importance of health literacy, organizations and providers play an instrumental role in improving healthcare for all patients, and all Oregonians.²

There are also ways patients can gain health literacy skills to more effectively navigate and manage their healthcare safely. A simple but effective tool patients can use is AHRQ’s Patient Note Sheet. This one-page note taking sheet is designed to help patients ask questions about their medical condition and treatments and keep track of important health information.

Health Literacy Resources

For Organizations

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)

• AHRQ Pharmacy Health Literacy Center

Unity Point Health

• Building Health Literate Organizations: A Guidebook to Achieving Organizational Change

For Healthcare Professionals

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)

• Health Literacy Universal Precautions Toolkit, 2nd Edition

• Engaging Patients and Families in Their Health Care

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

• Health Literacy Basics

• Health Literacy Trainings

U.S. Department of Health & Human Services – Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion

• Health Communication Activities: Health Literacy Improvement

For Patients

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)

• AHRQ Patient Note Sheet

References

¹ US Department of Health and Human Services. “Quick guide to health literacy fact sheet: health literacy and health outcomes.” (2015). Accessed October 7, 2019, https://health.gov/communication/literacy/quickguide/factsbasic.htm

² Rosenblatt, Michael, and Laurie Myers. “Communication Is Part of the Cure: Improving Health Literacy,” Journal of Health Communication 21, no. sup1 (2016):1-2.