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Health Literacy: A Prescription to End
Confusion
In April 2004, the Institute of Medicine released its groundbreaking report, Health
Literacy: A Prescription to End Confusion. The IOM Report provides an overview
of the scope and impact of low health literacy in the United States, and provides
specific recommendations at the national level for addressing the issue. The release
of the report was an important milestone for the Clear Health Communication movement
because it validated the work that Pfizer and others have been doing to address
a situation that impacts 90 million people in the United States and costs the health
care system billions of dollars every year.
In the report, the IOM makes specific recommendations to the public and private
sectors. These include:
- Support health literacy research, including research to explain the relationship
between health literacy and the education system, the health system and other social
and cultural systems; research to assess the effectiveness of different models combining
health literacy and basic literacy and instruction.
- Support the development, testing and use of culturally appropriate new measures
of health literacy.
- Support demonstration programs to establish the most effective approaches to reducing
the negative effects of limited health literacy.
- Support the development of conceptual frameworks on the intersection of culture
and health literacy.
- Develop and test approaches to improve health communication that foster healing
relationships across culturally diverse populations.
- Educators should incorporate health-related tasks, materials and examples into existing
lesson plans.
- Fund projects in states to attain National Health Education Standards and have accreditation
requirements for these standards in all private and public educational institutions.
- Professional health-related schools and continuing education programs should incorporate
health literacy into their curriculum and areas of competence.
- Health literacy assessment should be a part of the system; as such health literacy
needs to be incorporated into accreditation standards.
- Develop standards for health literacy in research applications.
Review Health Literacy: A
Prescription to End Confusion.
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