Health Literacy

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services created a National Action Plan to Improve Health Literacy. This action plan includes 7 goals to combat low health literacy. Overall, this plan seeks to engage organizations, professionals, policymakers, communities, individuals, and families in a linked, multi-sector effort to improve health literacy.

This is a great starting document for background information on health literacy. It not only discusses what it is, but address the implications of low health literacy as well as the cost.

The purpose of this Toolkit is to provide evidence-based guidance to support primary care practices in addressing health literacy. The Toolkit can help practices reduce the complexity of health care, increase patient understanding of health information, and enhance support for patients of all literacy levels. The Toolkit comprises 21 tools addressing 4 domains that are important for promoting health literacy in your practice.

The Plain Language Action and Information Network wrote this document to help users when writing patient education materials in the plain language. It addresses how to write for your audience, address their needs, write the document, and test it. Additionally, it goes over step by step instructions when writing the patient education materials.

Created by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, this thesaurus offers plain language equivalents to medical terms, phrases, and references often used. This can help you find words that many people will understand better.

The Institute of Medicine wrote this paper in order to describe the 10 attributes of health literate health care organizations. These health care organizations make it easier for people to navigate, understand, and use information and services to take care of their health. Health care organizations that embody these attributes create an environment that enables people to access and benefit optimally from the range of health care services. The 10 Attributes are discussed throughout the paper.