referring to adult literacy classes using lay health educators/navigators using mass media to disseminate health information (Sudore and Schillinger 2009).
Most people with low health literacy do not know they have an issue and, if they do, they are unlikely to tell health practitioners that they have a health literacy problem. To work within this context, health practitioners in the United States are implementing a universal precautions approach to health literacy. Universal precautions in relation to blood-borne diseases is a concept that is familiar to health practitioners; in health literacy the universal precautions concept means health practitioners approach every interaction with health consumers as if the consumers might have health literacy needs. Taking a universal precautions approach means checking the health literacy needs of consumers, providing clear communication (both written and spoken) to all consumers and actively building their health literacy knowledge and skills (DeWalt et al 2010).