Navigating any health care facility requires sophisticated literacy skills

From a Medpage Today posting by by Rima Rudd, ScD

“…Expectations and assumptions about average literacy lead to a mismatch between people’s actual skills and health systems’ processes and procedures. This remains surprisingly true even after the publication and widespread dissemination of findings from the U.S. Department of Education’s national adult literacy survey in 1992 and in 2003. Findings indicated that a majority of U.S. adults have difficulty using commonly found print materials to accomplish mundane tasks with accuracy. Furthermore, they provide evidence that a large percentage of adults have difficulty applying basic math skills to everyday activities – such as determining a discount or the correct dosage for over-the-counter medicine….

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For now, I bring your attention to something we often take for granted – our work environments and the activities faced by outsiders as they try to navigate health institutions.

I will use a hospital as an example

To read the whole blog item, click here

Related Resources

• The Health Literacy Activity Packet: First Impressions and a Walking Interview (Rima E. Rudd, MSPH, ScD, Harvard School of Public Health)
• Health Literacy and Cultural Competency (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality)
• Improving Health Information Literacy (Nebraska Methodist College Library Guide by Angela Arner)