pathoscribe

Written by Kirsten Batitay | Art by Nourah Bakary

More often than not, medical jargon can sound cryptic and unwelcoming…or just an unintelligible bunch of letters. This is one of the concerns of health literacy, which can be split into personal and organizational health literacy. Personal health literacy is defined by the US Dept. of Health and Human Services as 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.” On the other hand, organizational health literacy is the “degree to which organizations equitably enable individuals” to do the aforementioned. 

We now know what health literacy is, but what does it entail, and why does it matter? Well, it involves a wide variety of skills, including reading and comprehending information, deciphering symbols and instructions, “weighing risks and benefits,” and then making and acting on decisions. For example, these could include actions like calculating the right dosage of a medication or checking a nutrition label to make sure it’s safe for somebody with a food allergy. Having a high health literacy is essential for us to make the best decisions for our health, get necessary medical care, and properly manage a disease. 

As previously touched upon, someone can have high or low health literacy skills. While those with higher health literacy skills have a better chance of making informed health decisions that contribute to good health, those with low health literacy skills are at a disadvantage. They are more likely to make errors with medication, “have poor health outcomes,” and skip preventive measures like flu shots.

Of course, having a low health literacy isn’t usually intentional, and a few barriers prevent individuals from being more informed than others, at least in the case of the US, where low health literacy is quite prevalent, particularly among older adults and racial or ethnic minorities. Some connected contributing factors include income, education, and language and culture barriers. These are involved in the digital divide–the gap faced by racial or ethnic minorities and patients with lower health literacy, incomes, and education so they’re far less likely to access and use Internet-based portals for health information–and the process of properly navigating the US healthcare system. Other factors affecting one’s health literacy are knowledge of medical terms, understanding of the healthcare system, and ability to communicate with healthcare providers. 

While there are informal ways to measure health literacy like a patient’s frequency of missing appointments, ability to recognize and name their medication, and ability to give “coherent and sequential” medical history, there are also more formal tests. These include the REALM, SAHLSA, and TOFHLA, which measure one’s ability to read common medical terms or measure reading and ability to work with numbers using common medical scenarios and materials.

Although the responsibility of health literacy lies mainly in the hands of healthcare providers and social workers, one key research finding of the National Institutes of Health states that most health professionals attempt to and believe that they’re “communicating accurate information.” However, it’s been seen that patients can only recall about half of the information their physician provides during a visit, at least in terms of oral communication. 

To help with our understanding, we have to ensure that we communicate properly with our healthcare providers. If information is incomprehensible, we can ask our provider to explain it to us in a way that we can understand, or we can ask them to write down their instructions. Either way, it never hurts to ask, especially when it regards something as crucial as our health.

In any case, we should never be ashamed about not being fully acquainted with health information, especially as 9 out of 10 adults struggle with health literacy. Not knowing is alright, but what matters more is that we willingly take the proper steps to educate ourselves and communicate with our healthcare providers.

Works Cited:

Allen-Meares, Paula, et al. “Health Literacy Barriers in the Health Care System: Barriers and Opportunities for the Profession.” Health & Social Work, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 7 Jan. 2020, pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8453407/.

CHCS Staff. “How Is Low Health Literacy Identified?” Center for Health Care Strategies, Inc., Oct. 2013, http://www.chcs.org/media/How_is_Low_Health_Literacy_Identified.pdf.

Medline Staff. “Health Literacy.” MedlinePlus, U.S. National Library of Medicine, medlineplus.gov/healthliteracy.html#:~:text=Why%20is%20health%20literacy%20important,Lead%20a%20healthy%20lifestyle. Accessed 10 Nov. 2024.

NIH Staff. “Health Literacy.” National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 7 July 2021, http://www.nih.gov/institutes-nih/nih-office-director/office-communications-public-liaison/clear-communication/health-literacy.

NLM Staff. “An Introduction to Health Literacy.” NNLM, http://www.nnlm.gov/guides/intro-health-literacy. Accessed 10 Nov. 2024.