Health Literacy

The 2004 AMA-MSS Community Service Committee (CSC) identified health literacy as one of four focus areas important to the current practice of medicine and worthy of encouraging activism on the national level. The AMA-MSS is proud to invite chapters from around the nation to participate in an inaugural AMA-MSS Health Literacy Month, which is intended to promote health literacy education events nationwide. The first annual AMA-MSS Health Literacy Month will be held in October 2004.

Definition of Health Literacy: a patient’s ability to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions.

There are several key reasons why the CSC selected health literacy as an emerging issue of importance in medicine:

• 47% of adults in the US read below an 8^th grade level
• "When statistical adjustments were made for education and other sociodemographic co-variables, literacy level was the strongest correlate of health knowledge and disease management skills."
• Health literacy is a better predictor of one’s health status than: age, income, employment, ethnicity, or education level
• Studies have shown that low literate patients have poor knowledge and management of their chronic diseases
• In 1998, an estimated $50 to $73 billion dollars in US healthcare expenditures was lost due to low health literacy patients
• All socioeconomic and ethnic groups are affected
• Low health literacy negatively impacts patient health

The AMA-MSS Health Literacy Month targets medical and all other health professional students across the country. These students are America’s future healthcare providers and their education can directly impact the health of future patients! Chapters will implement a Health Literacy Month by sponsoring a lecture(s) from a health literacy expert or by personally presenting the topic to their peers. Medical students are uniquely able to garner the attention of their fellow colleagues and provide this important message to other students at a grassroots level.

The goals of the Health Literacy Month are to:

• Increase future healthcare providers’ awareness of the prevalence of low health literacy
• Teach students the impact of poor literacy skills on patient health outcomes
• Enable students to learn strategies to improve their communication with their low literate patients
• Help improve the efficacy of the healthcare delivered to low literate patients

To help you coordinate a health literacy day at your school, the CSC created the following resources:

• Health Literacy Module (Word, 49KB) - This module contains health literacy statistics, a step-by-step guide, a sample presentation, and many other resources to help you create your own health literacy event.
• Health Literacy Presentation (PowerPoint, 920KB) - This can be presented at your chapter to get other students informed and motivated for your health literacy project.

In addition, the AMA Foundation has been working since the AMA passed policy in 1998 to raise awareness of health literacy within the health care community. The AMA Foundation offers: a Health Literacy Toolkit, which is the primary tool for informing physicians, health care professionals and patient advocates about health literacy, and a video (temporarily unavailable), an effective tool in raising awareness and sparking discussion about patients’ low health literacy skills.

Don’t forget the AMA-MSS wants to hear about your health literacy projects so please email us and let us know what your chapter is doing to improve health literacy awareness!

Anu Kathiresan, Health Literacy Subcommittee Chair
Stephen Patrick, AMA-MSS Community Service Chair