ERIC Number: EJ877229
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2010
Pages: 4
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1934-2322
EISSN: N/A
Building Successful Partnerships in Health Literacy
McIntyre, Sue; Dale, Helen; Gabler, Carol
Adult Basic Education and Literacy Journal, v4 n1 p43-46 Spr 2010
Health literacy, the ability to obtain and understand information and services to make good health decisions, has received much attention recently. Literacy is a stronger predictor of health status than age, income, race, ethnicity, employment status, or educational level. Inadequate health literacy costs the United States an estimated $100-$236 billion every year (Howard, Gazmararian, & Parker, 2005). Improving health literacy is critical to health care access and patient safety. Efforts to increase patients' health literacy have only begun. One of the obstacles to advancing health literacy is a lack of communication between the literacy and health care fields. In this article, the authors share their experiences to help other literacy professionals find ways to work with health care professionals toward the shared goal of improving health literacy. They offer communication strategies that can be used with patients if low literacy skills are suspected. They also share some lessons they have learned as they built bridges between literacy providers and health care providers.
Descriptors: Communication Strategies, Health Education, Literacy, Health Promotion, Community Information Services, Outreach Programs, Consciousness Raising, Change Strategies, Group Dynamics, Physician Patient Relationship, Patient Education, Program Descriptions
Commission on Adult Basic Education and ProLiteracy America. 1320 Jamesville Avenue, Syracuse, NY 13210. Tel: 315-422-9121; Web site: http://www.coabe.org
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: Adult Basic Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: United States; Wisconsin
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A