Health Literacy and Printed Materials PDF

HEALTH COMMUNICATION, HEALTH LITERACY, AND PRINTED MATERIALS Printed Materials Printed Materials - Examples  Healthcare and public health systems rely heavily on printed materials, including:  Medical history forms  Insurance forms  Informed consent...

HEALTH COMMUNICATION, HEALTH LITERACY, AND PRINTED MATERIALS Printed Materials Printed Materials - Examples  Healthcare and public health systems rely heavily on printed materials, including:  Medical history forms  Insurance forms  Informed consent forms  Patients’ rights and responsibilities  Test results  Directions to the lab or pharmacy  Hospital discharge and home care instructions  Clinical research protocols and announcements Health Literacy 2023 Progress?? Definition (updated in August 2020) Health literacy  Includes numeracy skills  Examples Calculating cholesterol Measuring medications Understanding nutrition labels Printed Materials - Examples  Healthcare and public health systems rely heavily on printed materials, including:  Medical history forms  Insurance forms  Informed consent forms  Patients’ rights and responsibilities  Test results  Directions to the lab or pharmacy  Hospital discharge and home care instructions  Clinical research protocols and announcements Health literacy: At Risk Population  Populations most likely to experience low health literacy  older adults  racial and ethnic minorities  people with less than a high school degree or GED certificate  people with low income levels  non-native speakers of English  people with compromised health status  Education, language, culture, access to resources, and age are all factors that affect a person’s health literacy skills. Health literacy  Only 12% of adults have Proficient health literacy (National Assessment of Adult Literacy).  14% of adults (30 million people) have Below Basic health literacy. Health literacy: why care?  Persons with limited health literacy skills… Health literacy: why care?  Impacts healthcare costs  Using more services to treat, less services to prevent  Higher rates of emergency services and hospitalization Simply Put  Make Your Message Clear  Text Appearance Matters  Visuals Help Tell Your Story  Layout and Design  Consider Culture  Translations Take Your Message Further SAM Suitability Assessment of Materials  Originally designed to be used with printed materials---Expanded to video  Includes literacy  Provides a numeric score  Superior  Adequate  Not Suitable Readibility  6th grade reading level – 75%  3rd grade reading level – 90%  “adults at all reading skill level prefer and learn better with easy to read instructions”