How many people interact with their health care provider and walked away with their questions left unanswered? Do they read information at providers’ offices and wonder what it means?
October is Health Literacy Month. Health literacy is the ability to understand health-related information that is being communicated, whether it be verbally or in writing. Not everyone is at the same level of literacy, but everyone has health concerns and should be able to understand information that is essential to their health or that of their loved ones.
By some estimates, only 12 percent of English-speaking adults in the United States have the necessary skills to be considered health literate.
Anyone in the health care field who interacts with patients or creates websites, brochures and other communication that will be read by the public needs to think about the information being relayed and how it might be perceived by others on all points of the literacy spectrum.
To learn more about health literacy, visit www.cdc.gov/healthliteracy.
Jasmine Pike
Public health graduate student
University of Southern Maine
Bangor
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have a commenting profile? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.