The Need for Health Literacy

Medical illiteracy is the most major contributing factor to poor health, both in America and world-wide, and is 100% preventable. Here are excerpts from several recent articles on medical literacy.

"Ninety million people in the U.S. alone struggle with health literacy, according to the American Medical Association. Health literacy is defined by the Institutes of Medicine as the degree to which an individual can obtain, process and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions. That means any of 90 million Americans might be leaving a doctor's office with an asthma inhaler they don't understand how to use, getting diabetes medication whose directions are a blur or rushing by car to the hospital with chest pains but can't read the signs to the emergency room."

From the Chicago Tribube. Read the full article at http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/health/chi-0925_health_literacy_halfsep25,1,6475676.story


"Using medications correctly. Managing diabetes. Signing up for Medicaid.
Millions of Americans have trouble understanding and performing such tasks. They have problems with health literacy — struggling to process basic information that allows them to make major medical decisions.
Elderly patients, those with limited English proficiency and even well-educated adults can have difficulty comprehending a physician's instructions.
And those who have trouble understanding such information tend to get hospitalized more and use emergency services more, leading to billions of dollars in avoidable costs, researchers have found.

From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Full article at http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/atlanta/stories/2007/09/28/libraries_humana_0928g.html

"Of the people considered to have low health literacy, only 15 percent adhered to the specific directions on their medication. "

From the East Tennessean. Full article at http://media.www.easttennessean.com/media/storage/paper203/news/2007/09/24/News/Stinsons.Speech.Highlights.Importance.Of.Health.Literacy-2987161.shtml

"Confronted with figures showing that more than 225,000 adults in the county aren't getting the reading and math help they need, the United Way of Tarrant County has set out to dramatically bolster area literacy programs through the Tarrant Literacy Coalition.
The coalition's launch at a luncheon Monday comes about a year after about 200 nonprofit, government and business leaders began meeting, doing research and conducting literacy focus groups. About 20 percent of Tarrant County adults, or about 238,000 people, have "below basic" literacy skills. That means, at best, they can only perform the simplest tasks, like searching a paragraph for what a patient can drink before a medical test or adding the amounts on a deposit slip.
Privately and publicly funded literacy programs serve less than 4 percent of that population, the United Way says."

From the Star Telegram. Full article at http://www.star-telegram.com/metro_news/story/246393.html