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 health decisions.”6-9 An estimated 40 million
people in the United States have difficulty understanding
and acting on health information, which may
negatively influence their health outcomes.7-9 Patients’
health literacy is associated with health knowledge,
health status, and use of health services.10-21 Health
literacy plays an important role in disease prevention
through the understanding of risk and the identification
of necessary behavioral changes.9
Given the importance
of health literacy in understanding medical care, the
Institute of Medicine (IOM) recently issued the report
Health Literacy: A Prescription to End Confusion,
which calls for multidisciplinary research on the consequences
of limited health literacy.9