Improving Health Literacy for Better Health Outcomes
Health Literacy FAQ
What is health literacy?
While there are many published definitions, there is no consensus on its meaning (Sørensen et al. 2012). Health literacy initially focused on the ability of individuals to read and understand medical information, however the way information is delivered by health care professionals and organisations is equally important.
What are the three levels of health literacy?
Several studies viewed health literacy as a hierarchy of functions, which require different levels of social and cognitive skills. Nutbeam 3 first proposed the three-level model: functional health literacy, interactive health literacy and critical health literacy.
What is organizational health literacy?
Organizational health literacy is the degree to which organizations equitably enable individuals to find, understand, and use information and services to inform health-related decisions and actions for themselves and others.
Do health literacy skills help people understand and use health information and services?
Strong literacy and numeracy skills do help people understand and use health information and services, but research shows that most people still say that information and services are unfamiliar, complicated, and too technical. Listen to health literacy leaders describe their research and practice in podcasts (Source: Health Literacy Out Loud).
What is a health literacy problem?
People need information they can understand and use to make the best decisions for their health. When organizations or people create and give others health information that is too difficult for them to understand, we create a health literacy problem.
What is health literacy & why is it important?
Health literacy is about how people understand information about health and health care, and how they apply that information to their lives, use it to make decisions and act on it. Health literacy plays an important role in enabling effective partnerships.
What is individual health literacy?
Individual health literacy is the skills, knowledge, motivation and capacity of a person to access, understand, appraise and apply information to make effective decisions about health and health care and take appropriate action.
Health Literacy References
If you want to know more about Health Literacy, consider exploring links below:
What Is Health Literacy
- https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/australias-health/health-literacy
- https://www.cdc.gov/healthliteracy/learn/index.html
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7239702/
- https://healthliteracy.nnswlhd.health.nsw.gov.au/health-professionals/what-is-health-literacy/
- https://www.who.int/teams/health-promotion/enhanced-wellbeing/ninth-global-conference/health-literacy
- https://www.healthliteracyhub.org.au/what-is-health-literacy/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_literacy