1. 88% of American adults have health literacy skill below the “proficient” level. This means that they cannot…
- Find the information needed to define a medical term in a complex document.
- Judge information to decide which legal document applies to a certain health care situation.
- Calculate a person’s share of health insurance costs for a year using a table based on income and family size.
(Source: The Health Literacy of America’s Adults: Results from the 2003
National Assessment of Adult Literacy)
2. The estimated added annual cost to the health care system due to low health literacy: $106-238 Billion
(Source: Low Health Literacy: Implications for National Health Policy
Vernon, J. Trujillo, A. Rosenbaum, S. DeBuono, B. October 2007)
(Image Source: Strategies to Improve Communications Between Pharmacy Staff and Patients, downloaded 12-3-08 from: http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/pharmlit/pharmtrain2.htm)
