Avenues explored for improving health literacy

A conference focuses on the scope of the problem and on ways physicians and others can help patients who have trouble understanding instructions and information.

By Susan J. Landers, AMNews staff. Dec. 17, 2007.

Washington -- Complexity in the health care system is widely acknowledged as a barrier to effective care for many people, and now it's time to simplify, simplify, simplify, said participants at a recent conference, Advancesin Health Literacy.

With researchers having already demonstrated some serious problems associated with poor health literacy -- more emergency department visits and hospitalizations, and patients' inability to follow physicians' directions -- they are now shifting their focus to finding solutions. Several were presented at the conference, co-sponsored by the American College of Physicians Foundation and the Institute of Medicine and held Nov. 28 in Washington, D.C.

It was the IOM's 2004 report, "Health Literacy: A Prescription to End Confusion," that found that nearly half of all American adults -- 90 million people -- have difficulty understanding and using health information.

Health literacy goes beyond just reading to include writing, listening, speaking and mathematical skills, noted the report. Those skill sets come into play even before patients set foot in a physician's office; without such skills, patients may not even be able to find the office.

The situation is likely to worsen in coming years, said Rose Martinez, ScD, director of the IOM's Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice. She presented information assembled by the IOM Roundtable on Health Literacy showing that as immigration increases, accompanied by lower English language proficiency, unemployment also will grow, along with the number of uninsured. Health literacy issues likely will be most severe among those older than 65.