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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.

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.

Health equity is the attainment of the highest level of health for all people.

Source: https://www.cdc.gov/healthliteracy/learn/index.html

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Support Diverse Individuals in Healthcare (Starting With Funding Public School Systems)

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Support Diverse Individuals in Healthcare (Starting With Funding Public School Systems)

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Patients feel the most comfortable when their healthcare providers speak the same language. The more diverse we make the healthcare profession, the more access to diverse providers patients will have.

Starting with supporting a diverse student population by funding public school systems adequately and appropriately leads to more students prepared to pursue a career in healthcare.

Lopez Vera, A., Thomas, K., Trinh, C., & Nausheen, F. (2023). A Case Study of the Impact of Language Concordance on Patient Care, Satisfaction, and Comfort with Sharing Sensitive Information During Medical Care. Journal of immigrant and minority health, 1–9. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-023-01463-8

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Check Your Clinic Materials for Readability

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Check Your Clinic Materials for Readability

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Make sure the materials you're giving to patients are at a reading level they can understand. The average American reads at a 7th or 8th grade reading level, however, around 54% of Americans have a literacy below a 6th grade reading level.

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Readability scores are a way to measure whether written information is likely to be understood by the intended reader.

Text that scores a readability grade level of 8 or better (8 or below) will be readable by around 85% of the general public.

Readable supports several different readability formulas, but if you are not sure where to start then the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level is a good, all-purpose algorithm.

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Measure the Readability of Text - Text Analysis Tools - Unique readability tools to improve your writing! App.readable.com

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Hello and welcome to Readable! We’re thrilled you’re here. Did you know that the average attention span for a website visitor is only 7 seconds? That’s roughly how long it takes the average person to read two average sentences. That’s not much time to grab someone’s atten…

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- nearly 1 million hospital visits can be prevented by improving health literacy
- poor health literacy is correlated with higher rates of morbidity and mortality
- it is estimated poor health literacy costs the US nearly $25 billion a year

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Support and Participate in Collecting Data on Cities, not Counties

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Support and Participate in Collecting Data on Cities, not Counties

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While more difficult to obtain, using city data to inform health decisions rather than county paints a better picture of smaller communities and accounts for the differences between communites within the same county. County dashboards are a great place to start, but research shows consistent discrepancies in city-county data pairs across many aspects of health and health literacy. City-focused research is crucial in order to identify unique community needs.

Spoer BR, Feldman JM, Gofine ML, Levine SE, Wilson AR, Breslin SB, et al. Health and Health Determinant Metrics for Cities: A Comparison of County and City-Level Data. Prev Chronic Dis 2020;17:200125. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5888/pcd17.200125

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Take the Time to Make Sure Patients Understand Their Care

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Take the Time to Make Sure Patients Understand Their Care

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Doing something as simple as using teach back methods during treatment or taking the time to repeat information to a patient can make a large difference in how patients understand their care. Being nonjudgemental and patient promotes a welcoming and safe environment for patients that may have anxieties surrounding healthcare due to low health literacy, and in research has been shown to improve health outcomes.

Tavakoly Sany SB, Behzhad F, Ferns G, Peyman N. Communication skills training for physicians improves health literacy and medical outcomes among patients with hypertension: a randomized controlled trial. BMC Health Serv Res. 2020 Jan 23;20(1):60. doi: 10.1186/s12913-020-4901-8. PMID: 31973765; PMCID: PMC6979365.

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Read more about the impact of poor health literacy here:

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Read more about the impact of poor health literacy here:

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Factors that Contribute to Poor Health Literacy

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Factors that Contribute to Poor Health Literacy

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Poor Health Literacy has been correlated to:
- low literacy and numeracy
- low education
- low socioeconomic status
- disability
- poor health outcomes

Shahid, R., Shoker, M., Chu, L. M., Frehlick, R., Ward, H., & Pahwa, P. (2022). Impact of low health literacy on patients' health outcomes: a multicenter cohort study. BMC health services research, 22(1), 1148. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-022-08527-9

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Make sure that clinical materials are designed with their target audience in mind. Tools such as this "Understand Your Audience" article from the CDC helps to advise the creation of health materials with health literacy in mind.

Additionally, make sure resources for your target audience are in the appropriate language. Most interpreter service information is only provided in English, which defeats the purpose!

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Understanding your audience means specifying who your intended audience is. It's not everyone. You can find examples of specific audiences at List of Common Public Health Audiences. You'll also need to learn the following about your intended audience:

Their needs, wants, motivations, attitudes, and values

Their literacy, health literacy, and numeracy skills

Their cultural beliefs and practices

Their preferred communication channels for getting health messages

You can often find this information by conducting a literature search, using an audience research database, consulting an organization that works directly with your intended audience, or by conducting a survey with a sample of your audience. The more you know about your audience, the better you can reach them with messages, activities, and policies. We've provided resources and tools to get you started.

Surveys and other tools measure people's literacy, numeracy, and their experiences with healthcare. Use these studies for ideas about research and evaluation questions or as benchmarks for your own results.

Organizations can increase communication effectiveness when they recognize and bridge cultural differences that may contribute to miscommunication. Find health literacy resources and information to communicate across cultures.

This section provides tools and resources to help public health professionals improve their communication with older adults by focusing on health literacy issues.

After you develop your message or communication material, test it with a sample of your intended audience and use their feedback to improve the material's formatting, text, and images.

Page last reviewed:

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Understanding your audience means specifying who your intended audience is. It's not everyone. You can find examples of specific audiences at List of Common Public Health Audiences.

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Learn Medical Spanish (or the primary language of your community)

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Learn Medical Spanish (or the primary language of your community)

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Research shows that patients feel more comfortable when their healthcare provider speaks the same language as them. Taking the time to learn the primary language of your community will make your patient-provider relationships better and promote better health literacy.

See two resources below to learn medical Spanish!

Lopez Vera, A., Thomas, K., Trinh, C., & Nausheen, F. (2023). A Case Study of the Impact of Language Concordance on Patient Care, Satisfaction, and Comfort with Sharing Sensitive Information During Medical Care. Journal of immigrant and minority health, 1–9. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-023-01463-8

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Boston Medical Spanish Center has a partnership with the IHP and offers a 5-week course for less than $200

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Multiple levels of medical Spanish classes offered with MGH's Institute of Health Professions

is to enable providers to connect with patients at the beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels. Our classes are conversation and vocabulary driven, targeting medical terminology as well as vital communication structures. We provide our students with over 400 essential terms per course as well as extensive conversational practice at all levels through interactive activities.

Complete the registration form and submit the registration fee

View course descriptions, program logistics, and the fine print

Share this program with your friends and colleagues

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Boston Medical Spanish Center | MGH PROGRAMS

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Multiple levels of medical Spanish classes offered with MGH's Institute of Health Professions is to enable providers to connect with patients at the beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels. Our classes are conversation and vocabulary driven, targeting medical terminology as well as vital communication structures.

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Learn about your community's health literacy using this Health Literacy Map:

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Learn about your community's health literacy using this Health Literacy Map:

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Supporting funding for school and community based ESL programs help non-native English speakers gain access to materials that are only available in English. The earlier, the better! Tying these programs to a health literacy curriculum has shown to be effective in increasing health literacy and patient outcomes.

Community based ESL programs work towards increasing non-native English speakers' access to their community while we simultaneously work to make information more widely available in the primary language of our community.

Soto Mas, F., Ji, M., Fuentes, B. O., & Tinajero, J. (2015). The Health Literacy and ESL study: a community-based intervention for Spanish-speaking adults. Journal of health communication, 20(4), 369–376. https://doi.org/10.1080/10810730.2014.965368

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The International Language Institute of MA offers Spanish for Healthcare Professionals that can be reimbursed partially or fully through the Workforce Training Program, which means your clinic can sponsor it's staff to take medical Spanish at little to no cost.

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Welcome to our Spanish for Health Care courses. ILI courses are taught by friendly and experienced career educators. Our dynamic lessons are customized to meet the needs of people in the Healthcare profession. Whether you take part in our individual classes or our Workplace Training Program, our courses will put you on the fast track for success in communicating with Spanish speaking clients.

Whatever your goals or background, we're here to help. We offer Spanish lessons online using Zoom and Google Classroom or in face-to-face live classes here in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Our learner-centered methodology cultivates practical language skills that students can immediately begin using in the workplace. All classes include:

Work on speaking and using the language-students work on all four skills (speaking, listening, reading and writing)

Pronunciation practice, tips and tricks to help students communicate clearly

Vocabulary and grammar relevant to ability and goals

Specific cultural components unique to the focus of the
course

Tailored lessons for particular areas of focus within the healthcare field

Financial Assistance for Massachusetts Businesses

In Massachusetts financial assistance is available to employers who offer language instruction in their workplaces. ILI is an approved provider for the Workplace Training Fund, which provides reimbursement from 50%-100% of the cost of language instruction.

For more information, contact: Heather Hall (heather@ili.edu)

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Spanish for Healthcare Professionals - ILI Massachusetts | ILI

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Welcome to our Spanish for Health Care courses. ILI courses are taught by friendly and experienced career educators. Our dynamic lessons are customized to meet the needs of people in the Healthcare profession. Whether you take part in our individual classes or our Workplace Training Program , our courses will put you on the fast track for success in communicating with Spanish speaking clients.

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Join and Support Community Health Literacy Programs

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Join and Support Community Health Literacy Programs

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The CDC provides a list of community organizations working to improve health literacy at the link above

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Community resources provide residents with information, education, social support, and local health and social services. Community organizations can evaluate local needs and incorporate health literacy strategies and activities to contribute to the well-being of community members. Adult literacy and English-language instruction can be especially important to those who need help finding and using easy-to-understand health information and services. The resources on this page can help community organizations, literacy, and English-language education programs recognize and respond to community members health information and communication needs. The resources may also help other individuals and organizations identify common interests and opportunities to work with community groups.

Community Educators and Providers

For more information, please review the complete text of Goal 3 pdf icon [666 KB, 73 Pages] external icon in the National Action Plan to Improve Health Literacy. See: Section 3, Goal 3.

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Community resources provide residents with information, education, social support, and local health and social services. Community organizations can evaluate local needs and incorporate health literacy strategies and activities to contribute to the well-being of community members. Adult literacy and English-language instruction can be especially important to those who need help finding and using easy-to-understand health information and services.

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Advocate to Add Health Literacy into School Curriculums

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Advocate to Add Health Literacy into School Curriculums

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Advocate at the local level to include health literacy information in school curriculums. The CDC provides example curriculums starting at the kindergarten level all the way through high school. At the national level, advocate for health literacy to be a mandated part of public school curriculum nationwide.

Courses such as the one linked above are designed to teach students basic health literacy and can be delivered in person, online, as a lesson, or as an after school assignment.

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Navigating the Health Care System is a four-unit health literacy curriculum designed by Nemours Children's Health for use with young adults. It is designed to prepare high school and college-age teens to be responsible for managing their own health care as they transition into adulthood. Materials are suitable for in-class, in-home, after-school, and community settings, and can be taught virtually.

Inspired by the curriculum's strong evaluation outcomes, in Spring 2018 Nemours Children's began making the curriculum available at no cost, nation-wide. Since then, we have continued to create new materials and offer them to the public. Recent additions include a one-hour version of the content suitable for adults, a home-use workbook with answer key- suitable for home-schooling, and a COVID-19 supplement to existing materials for teens.

Jump directly to LESSON PLANS or scroll down for additional details.

Get Updates on New Health Literacy Lessons & Resources

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Navigating the Health Care System - Moving Health Care Upstream

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Navigating the Health Care System is a four-unit health literacy curriculum designed by Nemours Children's Health for use with young adults. It is designed to prepare high school and college-age teens to be responsible for managing their own health care as they transition into adulthood.

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The NIH offers this course on accessing and assessing health information to increase adolescents' ability to understand health information and identify misinformation.

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Student Objectives

Students will be able to...

Identify and use resources that provide high-quality health information and give one example of a reputable source.

Describe how various sources of information (e.g., family, friends, peers, schools, culture, social media, news media) influence their personal health behaviors.

This activity is designed for in-person instruction or can be delivered virtually.

Activity

Teacher prompts are in italics.

Part 1

(This portion of the activity will take approximately 20 minutes. You can allow students more time to complete their visual representation if desired. The visual representation can be developed outside of class time, for example. This activity can also be used as a standalone activity, separate from Part 2.)

Before you introduce this part of the activity, ask students to think about what health means by saying: Think about what health means to you, your body, your mind, and the relationships you have with your friends and in your family. How does health affect how you live every day?

Next, explain the activity: Students will create a visual representation of how family, friends, peers, community, culture, social media, news media, and other factors influence what they think and do related to their health. Students can design their visual representation as slides or a collage of printed images or use another platform or media of their choosing.

To help students design their visual representation, share with them this list of questions to think about:
Questions to Think About

If you wanted to find out something about a health topic, where might you look? Who might you talk to?

What websites do you go to for health information? (These could include news sites, blogs, YouTube, or others.)

Who are the people or accounts you follow on social media?

Where do you see people talk about or share experiences with drugs and alcohol?

Who are some people that you go to for health information that you trust?

Who are the people you know in real life whose opinions you trust? (Friends count!)

Answer any questions students might have, then allow them to create their visual representation. You might choose to ask students to share their creation in a future classroom meeting or online in your classroom's board.

ID the Site

The ending of a URL provides clues about how to evaluate the content of a website.

.com = commercial. Often companies that make money

.edu = educational institution. Often universities

.gov = government. Usually federal, state, and local agencies

.net = network. Could be any site

.org = organization. Most often is a nonprofit organization

Part 2

(This portion of the activity should take approximately 15 minutes. It can be combined with Part 1 on the same day or different days.)

Connect the work done in Part 1 to Part 2 by saying: As you have seen, we get information from different types of sources: People, the internet, social media, television. Now we are going to talk about how to decide whether a source of information is valid. "Valid" means a source offers correct, factual information that is based on research.
Why is it important that health information be valid? How can you determine whether or not a resource provides valid health information?
Allow students to share a few answers, then say: It's important to think critically about what you read and where you get your information. Asking some simple questions can often help you determine if health information is based on solid data, or if it contains ".". Bias can mean that a source provides information based on only one point of view or preference instead of presenting all of the facts. One form of bias is monetary bias, which means that a source earns money for sharing information based on a certain preference. This type of bias - and other types of bias, too - can happen on social media, television, or the internet. Bias can affect people if they already believe one thing to be true. When reading and reviewing information, it's important to ask yourself questions about bias. For example, you might ask, "Does this source have a reason to offer one point of view over another?".

Next, hand out or share online copies of the "Questions to Ask as You Evaluate a Source of Health Information" worksheet (see below). Briefly review the questions in the worksheet with the class, then assign students to breakout rooms/groups of 3 to 4 students each. Assign each group one of the sources of information from the bulleted list below ("Sources of Health Information") and ask students to answer the worksheet questions based on the source you assigned. The goal of this activity is for students to learn how to determine whether their sources can be trusted to share accurate health information or whether information from that source should be viewed with some caution.

Say: We hear health messages in a number of ways, including through the media we consume and the people we talk to every day. How do you know whether a source of information is trustworthy? From turning to the internet to search for information to scrolling through Instagram, it can be challenging to figure out who and what you can trust to give you the facts. Work with your group to fill out the worksheet to analyze a potential source of information.
Sources of Health Information
Assign each group one of the following:

The first article you find when you search online for the topic.

An article on the topic from the Associated Press, National Public Radio, or Reuters (reliable national or international journalism sources. You can pull an article for the students or ask the students to go to these sites and do a search themselves.)

An article on the topic from the website of a local television news station.

A Wikipedia article on the topic.

Your parent/caregiver.

Your coach or club advisor

Questions to Ask as You Evaluate a Source of Health Information (WORKSHEET)

As time permits, discuss the answers as a class, or ask the students to turn in their responses.

Wrap this section up by saying: Accessing information may be easy to do these days, yet accessing information and resources that are unbiased, valid, and reliable can be much harder. It is important to decide if a source of information is trustworthy before you consider its information as accurate and act on that information.

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Is This Legit? Accessing Valid and Reliable Health Information | National Institute on Drug Abuse

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Students will be able to... Identify and use resources that provide high-quality health information and give one example of a reputable source. Describe how various sources of information (e.g., family, friends, peers, schools, culture, social media, news media) influence their personal health behaviors. This activity is designed for in-person instruction or can be delivered virtually.

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There are MANY ways to get involved and promote health literacy. The CDC provides tons of resources to learn about and teach about health literacy that are not covered on this padlet :)

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Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

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Welcome to CDC's health literacy website. This site is for health communicators, public health professionals, and community leaders who seek information and tools on health literacy research, practice, and evaluation.

We aim to bring you timely information about the work of CDC and other organizations to improve health literacy. CDC's work aligns with the goals and strategies of the National Action Plan to Improve Health Literacy, CDC's Action Plan to Improve Health Literacy and the federal Plain Writing Actexternal icon .

Sign up for our weekly health literacy updates. Please visit us often and let us know what information you'd like to see on the site.

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Welcome to CDC's health literacy website. This site is for health communicators, public health professionals, and community leaders who seek information and tools on health literacy research, practice, and evaluation. We aim to bring you timely information about the work of CDC and other organizations to improve health literacy.