According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Healthy People 2030 initiative, health literacy involves the information and services that people need to make well-informed health decisions. There are many aspects of health literacy:
- Personal health literacy is the degree to which individuals have the ability to find, understand, and use information and services to inform health-related decisions and actions for themselves and others. Examples of personal health literacy include understanding prescription drug instructions, understanding doctor’s directions and consent forms, and the ability to navigate the complex healthcare system.
- 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. Examples of organizational health literacy include simplifying the process to schedule appointments, using the Teach-Back method to ensure patient comprehension, and providing communications in the appropriate language, reading level and format.
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Digital health literacy, as defined by the World Health Organization, is the ability to seek, find, understand, and appraise health information from electronic sources and apply the knowledge gained to addressing or solving a health problem. Examples of digital health literacy include accessing an electronic health record, communicating electronically with your health care team, discerning reliable online health information, and using health and wellness apps.
Nearly 9 out of 10 adults struggle with health literacy. Even people with high literacy skills may have low health literacy skills in certain situations. For example, someone who is stressed and sick when they’re accessing health information may have trouble remembering, understanding, and using that information.
Health literacy involves more than reading — it also includes specific skills, like calculating the right dose of a medicine, following directions for fasting before a surgery, or checking a nutrition label to make sure an item is safe for someone with a food allergy. People with low health literacy skills may have trouble doing these things.
People with low health literacy skills are more likely to:
- Have poor health outcomes, including hospital stays and emergency room visits
- Make medication errors
- Have trouble managing chronic diseases
- Skip preventive services, like flu shots
People with higher health literacy skills are more likely to make informed health decisions. That means they’re more likely to be healthy — and even to live longer.
Communicating clearly with people helps them find and understand health information. And when people understand health information, they can make well-informed health decisions.
We can also consider taking these steps to address health literacy:
- Ensure that people in the community can easily access the health information they need
- Create and provide plain language health materials in different languages
- Provide trainings to teach health professionals and others who provide health information about health literacy best practices
- Create clearinghouses of information about health literacy for health professionals
- Review health materials (like insurance forms and medication instructions) with community members to help make sure they understand the information — and what actions they need to take
You can find more information about Health Literacy in MedlinePlus. To find journal articles about health literacy, you can use the MEDLINE/PubMed health literacy search to retrieve citations to English language journal literature.
Training. The Network of the National Library of Medicine offers training for those who provide health information to the public, such as our Health Literacy On-Demand. Our trainings help health and information professionals better understand the impact of health literacy on health and gain skills to improve health literacy in their communities.
Resources. NNLM creates and promotes resources that can support network members in improving the health literacy of their communities. These resources include:
- NNLM Introduction to Health Literacy Guide Health literacy involves the information and services that people need to make well-informed health decisions. Learn more about the aspects of health literacy, why it's important, how it can be addressed, and how NNLM supports health literacy.
- Project SHARE is a program developed by the University of Maryland Health Sciences and Human Services Library and funded by the National Library of Medicine. Project SHARE aims to build high school students' skills to reduce health disparities at the personal, family and community level. Module II of the curriculum focuses on health literacy.
- Evaluating Internet Health Information: A Tutorial from the National Library of Medicine and MedlinePlus teaches people how to evaluate a variety of sources on the internet to determine how to find reliable sources. This also teaches people how to make proactive decisions about their health.
Funding. NNLM’s Regional Medical Libraries offer grant funding. Funded projects often address health literacy by providing access to and training on the use of quality health information resources. Recipients include organizations employing information professionals, healthcare providers, and public health professionals. Select projects are highlighted in the videos below. More information about funding, including additional previously funded projects, is available on NNLM’s funding page.