Health Literacy Research and Practice (Feb 2018)

Disruptive Innovation and Health Literacy

  • Joseph M. Geskey

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3928/24748307-20180115-01
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 2, no. 1
pp. e35 – e39

Abstract

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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).

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