Improving Health Literacy  Tags: education literacy illiteracy health_literacy health_communications health_sciences health_behavior_and_health_education information_literacy  

Reported December 4 at Medical News Today

“Kidney disease patients’ ability to understand basic health information may have a significant impact on whether or not they will receive an organ transplant, according to a study appearing in the January 2009 issue of the Clinical Journal of the American Society Nephrology (CJASN). The findings reveal an important disparity in access to care and point to the need for more standardized procedures for referring patients for transplantation.”

Read the full item at the link above, or the ASN press release here.

The health information literacy tutorial "Prescription for Information: Addressing Health Information Literacy!" Developed by Gail Kouame, Consumer Health Coordinator, National Network of Libraries of Medicine Pacific Northwest Region, for MLA's Health Information Literacy (HIL) Research Project, the tutorial is for health care providers and emphasizes the importance of health literacy and the challenges patients face in understanding medical terminology. It also helps participants recognize the impact that low health literacy has on patient care and learn about health information resources and strategies available to them and their patients. The tutorial also describes health literacy services provided by medical librarians. Based upon the health information literacy curriculum, "Putting Information into Health Literacy," developed by Sabrina Kurtz-Rossi for the MLA HIL project, the tutorial is free, but requires registration.

The Health Literacy Institute

• 2009 Summer Institute

The Institute for Healthcare Advancement

• Ninth Annual Health Literacy Conference: Health Literacy in the Real World: programs & Solutions That Work"

Boston University Medical Campus

• Health Literacy Research Conference (October 19-20, 2009 Washington, DC)
  

 Health Education and Literacy for Parents (HELP) Project from NYU's Langone Medical Center

"This project has been funded in whole or in part with Federal funds from the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, under Contract No. N01-LM-6-3503 with the University of Illinois at Chicago.” 

The NAAL Issue Brief entitled, "America's Health Literacy: Why We Need Accessible Health Information" is now online. THis brief summarizes key findings and presents some policy implications of the first ever national Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL).