Disruptive Innovation and Health Literacy

Abstract

Limitations in health literacy have been projected to cost the United States economy between $106 billion and $238 billion annually (Vernon, Trujillo, Rosenbaum, & DeBuono, 2007), in addition to being associated with worse health care outcomes (Berkman, Sheridan, Donahue, Halpern & Crotty, 2011). Health literacy scores are independently associated with household income, and with lower scores associated with decreased income (Rikard, Thompson, McKinney, & Beauchamp, 2016). Unfortunately, people in the bottom 5th percentile of a country's income distribution have a life expectancy that is 25% shorter than those in the top 5th percentile (Cutler, Deaton, & Lleras-Muney, 2006). Therefore, it is critical for health care providers to understand the health effects of social and economic policies that affect not only individual people, but the communities in which they live (Marmot, 2005).

Keywords

• health literacy
• disruptive innovation