Literacy and health literacy - why they matter to health professionals

Abstract

Low literacy and low health literacy affect people in all demographic strata and interfere with patients’ abilities to understand and act on information provided by health care providers. Many print health education materials are written at reading levels well above those recommended. Thus, compliance to health messages is compromised, and health costs are increased. As medicine moves into new fields such as precision medicine, effective communication between patients and health care professionals becomes even more challenging and important.

Keywords

• literacy
• health literacy
• patient education