Individual’s ability to understand his/her own health and act according to the health information is known as “knowledge of health”, or in other words “health literacy.” 77 million American adults have just the basic or below basic health literacy skills and 53% of American adults have average health literacy skills.
Health Literacy is important because individuals with low health literacy have an average annual healthcare cost of $13,000 compared to just $3000 for those with high literacy levels. Elderly citizens, chronic disease patients, immigrants are included as vulnerable populations. 81% of patients aged 60 or above at a public hospital could not read or understand the basic materials handed out to them.
One can improve his/her health literacy skills by assessing material for content relevant to health, stimulation learning, cultural appropriateness, learning motivation. Health Literacy Innovations has created a tool called Health Literacy Advisor (HLA). HLA scans documents for readability and brings down the level of reading to 6th grade.
However, people trying to improve health literacy skills should avoid technical words, concept words, negative words, statistics, value-judgement words. Main aim is to spread health awareness and not panic.