Health Literacy: Finding, Understanding and Using Health Information

Health literacy is about the information people need to make good decisions about their health. It has two sides.

• Personal health literacy is how well a person can find and understand the health information and services they need, and use them to make good decisions.
• Organisational health literacy is how well organisations help people find the health information and services they need, and help them use that information to make good decisions.

What affects it

Many things shape a person's health literacy:

• knowing medical words;
• understanding how the health care system works;
• being able to talk with health care providers;
• being able to find health information, which may take computer skills;
• reading, writing and number skills;
• personal factors such as age, income, education, language and culture;
• physical or mental limitations.

Many of the people at risk of limited health literacy also face health disparities — differences in health between groups of people, defined by age, race, sex or other factors.

Why it matters

Health literacy can affect your ability to:

• make good decisions about your health;
• get the medical care you need, including preventive care, which aims to stop disease before it starts and keep you healthy;
• take your medicines correctly;
• manage a disease, especially a long-term (chronic) one;
• lead a healthy life.

What you can do

Make sure you and your health care providers understand each other. If you don't understand something a provider tells you, ask them to explain it until you do. You can also ask them to write their instructions down.

Sources

• MedlinePlus, U.S. National Library of Medicine, "Health Literacy." https://medlineplus.gov/healthliteracy.html
• Rewritten in hubnx's own words.