What is Health Literacy?
Healthy People 2030 says,
- Personal health literacy is the degree to which individuals have the ability to find, understand, and use information and services to inform health-related decisions and actions for themselves and others.
- Organizational health literacy is the degree to which organizations equitably enable individuals to find, understand, and use information and services to inform health-related decisions and actions for themselves and others.
Why Does Health Literacy Matter?
As public health professionals and service providers, we have a responsibility to recognize the importance of health literacy when conducting work within our community. We live in an era of information overload, and consequently also live in an era of misinformation overload. It is our responsibility to equitably inform our community members. Because our community faces barriers to accessing, understanding, and using health information, health literacy should be at the forefront of all Public Health and Healthcare endeavors, individually and organizationally.
For providers and organizations, visit the CDC Health Literacy Webpage to learn more.