Health literacy is a relatively new concept in health promotion. It is a composite term to describe a range of outcomes to health education and communication activities. From this perspective, health education is directed towards improving health literacy. This paper identifies the failings of past educational programs to address social and economic determinants of health, and traces the subseq...

Patient education and effective communication are core elements of the nursing profession; therefore, awareness of a patient's health literacy is integral to patient care, safety, education, and counseling. Several past studies have suggested that health care providers overestimate their patient's health literacy. In this study, the authors compare inpatient nurses' estimate of their patient's ...

Health literacy is one of the major determinants of health and is one of the important factors in chronic diseases such as Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an inflammatory disease in which the myelin sheaths of the neural cells are damaged in the brain and spinal cord. The aim of this study was to evaluate the Health Literacy Association with Health Behaviors and Health Care Utilization. This study w...

INTRODUCTION Health literacy is one of the main determinants of health promotion. Regarding the influential role of the women in a society, enhancing their critical health literacy would be a prerequisite for the promotion of public health. The aims of this study were to determine the level of health literacy among fertile Iranian women with breast cancer and to determine the relationship betwe...

OBJECTIVE To explore characteristics associated with, and prevalence of, low health literacy in patients recruited to investigate the role of depression in patients on General Practice (GP) Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) registers (the Up-Beat UK study). DESIGN Cross-sectional cohort. The health literacy measure was the Rapid Estimate of Health Literacy in Medicine (REALM). Univariable analyses...

Policies in literacy and health need to address two perspectives: how basic literacy skills influence the health of populations and individuals; and health literacy--the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions. There are three potential areas for action to improve literacy ...

BACKGROUND In the United States, disparities in health literacy parallel disparities in health outcomes. Our research contributes to how diverse indicators of social inequalities (i.e., objective social class, relational social class, and social resources) contribute to understanding disparities in health literacy. METHODS We analyze data on respondents 18 years of age and older (N = 14,592) ...

According to the report Healthy People 2010, oral health literacy is the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate oral health decisions. Studies have linked a patient's health literacy to a variety of significant health behaviors, statuses and outcomes. This article provides an overview of th...