Medications play a prominent role in the treatment of many illnesses. Failing to adhere to prescribed medication regimens contributes to an array of poor health outcomes. In addition to the cost in terms of human suffering, the financial cost of medication nonadherence is staggering. Poor health literacy has been identified as a major cause of medication nonadherence. This paper focuses on nona...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Patients' health literacy is increasingly recognized as a critical factor affecting patient-physician communication and health outcomes. We reviewed research on health literacy, examined its impact on patient-physician communication, and offer recommendations to enhance communication with patients who have poor health literacy. METHODS We conducted a literature revie...

Several web-based search engines have been developed to assist individuals to find clinical trials for which they may be interested in volunteering. However, these search engines may be difficult for individuals with low health and computer literacy to navigate. The authors present findings from a usability evaluation of clinical trial search tools with 41 participants across the health and com...

BACKGROUND While the association between inadequate health literacy and adverse health outcomes has been well documented, less is known about the impact of health literacy on health perceptions, such as perceptions of control over health, and preventive health behaviors. METHODS We identified a subsample of participants (N = 707) from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), a nationally repres...

BACKGROUND An estimated one-half of Americans have limited health literacy skills. Low literacy has been associated with less receipt of preventive services, but its impact on colorectal cancer (CRC) screening is unclear. We sought to determine whether low literacy affects patients' knowledge or receipt of CRC screening. METHODS Pilot survey study of patients aged 50 years and older at a larg...

OBJECTIVES To assess the prevalence of low health literacy among adolescents, young adults, and child caregivers in the United States, the readability of common child-health information, and the relationship between literacy and child health. DATA SOURCES MedLine, Educational Resources Information Center, National Library of Medicine, PsychInfo, Harvard Health Literacy Bibliography, and peer-...

Patients vary in their preferences towards involvement in medical decision-making. Previous research, however, gives no clear explanation for this observed variation in their involvement. One possible explanation might be health literacy. Health literacy refers to personal characteristics and social resources needed for people to access, understand and use information to make decisions about th...

BACKGROUND Inadequate health literacy affects more than 90 million Americans and it has been associated with adverse outcomes in the medicine field including increased hospitalization rates and greater mortality. Since surgical patients are often required to make complex decisions and adhere to complex instructions, health literacy may have a profound impact in the surgical practice. The main o...

The home literacy environment (HLE) predicts language and reading development in typically developing children; relatively little is known about its association with literacy development in children at family-risk of dyslexia. We assessed the HLE at age 4 years, precursor literacy skills at age 5, and literacy outcomes at age 6, in a sample of children at family-risk of dyslexia (n = 116) and c...