Individuals with lower health literacy:
- Have poorer health outcomes, including higher rates of hospitalization, increased use of emergency services, and lower adherence to medical treatments.
- Are less likely to engage in preventive health practices, such as cancer screenings, vaccinations, and healthy lifestyle behaviors.
- Have higher healthcare costs due to increased hospitalizations, longer hospital stays, and higher utilization of healthcare services.
- Often face barriers in accessing and navigating the healthcare system, leading to disparities in health outcomes across different populations.
Health literacy is a central focus of Healthy People 2030. One of the initiative’s overarching goals demonstrates this focus: “Eliminate health disparities, achieve health equity, and attain health literacy to improve the health and well-being of all.”
What is Health Literacy?
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, Title V, defines health literacy as the degree to which an individual has the capacity to obtain, communicate, process, and understand basic health information and services to make appropriate health decisions. This is also the definition that was included in Healthy People 2010 and 2020.
Healthy People 2030 addresses both personal health literacy and organizational health literacy and provides the following definitions:
- Personal health literacy is the degree to which individuals have the ability to find, understand, and use information and services to inform health-related decisions and actions for themselves and others.
- Organizational health literacy is the degree to which organizations equitably enable individuals to find, understand, and use information and services to inform health-related decisions and actions for themselves and others.
The new definitions:
- Emphasize people’s ability to use health information rather than just understand it
- Focus on the ability to make “well-informed” decisions rather than “appropriate” ones
- Incorporate a public health perspective
- Acknowledge that organizations have a responsibility to address health literacy
DHHS/ODPHP, 2020
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About Us
To help people in Ohio find, understand, and use health information to make decisions about their health. We do this by bringing together a wide range of health care providers, advocates, and organizations to:
- Improve health literacy in communities across the state of Ohio
- Improve health professionals' health literacy knowledge and practice
- Promote and support health literacy in organizations