Health literacy has been defined 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.” Significant gaps exist between what the public or patients understand and what is being communicated by public health professionals and medical providers. This affects the prevention of disease, treatment and rehabilitation and therefore contributes to the health disparities that we continue to observe.
Several months ago, a colleague related the real story of a patient who had been prescribed new medication. Not understanding that this was to replace the old medication, the individual continued to take both the old and the new prescription. I was not surprised at the story being told. Over the years I have heard and experienced similar stories of patient/provider communication gone awry. I was however surprised that this situation had occurred recently. With all the various advances in communication we still too often as receivers, or senders seem to miss the essential information. Individuals cannot be expected to follow directions that they don’t understand.
Organizations should work with partners and stakeholders to establish a plan that will improve how they provide health information. This intentional effort is to ensure that the public and patients are better able to understand and comply with the guidance provided for improving their health. Improving our verbal and written health information must be a priority if we hope to see improvements in the health status of our community.
