JABSOM Library: Library Updates

October is Health Literacy Month

IHA Health Literacy PSA video provided by iha4health through YouTube 

What is health literacy?

Health literacy involves the information and services that people need to make well-informed health decisions. 1 There are different aspects of health literacy:

• Personal health literacy is about how well a person can find and understand the health information and services they need. It is also about using that information and services to make good health decisions. 2
• Organization health literacy is about how well organizations help people find the health information and services that they need. It also includes helping them use that information to make good health decisions. 2

Why is health literacy important?

Low health literacy makes it difficult for patients to understand and thus comply with health care advice and in turn, leads to poorer health outcomes. Lower levels of health literacy also often correlate with health disparity in populations due to socioeconomic, educational, and language differences. 3 Higher levels of health literacy may lead to greater autonomy by allowing individuals to make more informed health care decisions. 4 In the midst of a pandemic, it is more important than ever to help people understand how to protect themselves and others from contracting and/or spreading a disease. 5 Health literacy empowers people to identify accurate information and discard misinformation.

What can patients do to improve their health literacy?

• Learn about health issues through trusted sources (think SIFT), improve your communication skills with doctors, and be your own advocate.

• Resources for consumers:

  • Talking With Your Doctor: https://medlineplus.gov/talkingwithyourdoctor.html 

  • Question builder (AHRQ): https://www.ahrq.gov/questions/question-builder/index.html 

  • Common abbreviations (NIH NLM): https://medlineplus.gov/appendixb.html 

  • Word parts and what they mean (NIH NLM): https://medlineplus.gov/appendixa.html

What can health care professionals (HCPs) do?

• For HCPs, enhancing cultural competence, examining personal bias (implicit or not), and improving communication skills with patients may help. 5

• Resources for HCPs:

  • Cultural competency: https://hslib.jabsom.hawaii.edu/culture 

  • Communication skills for shared decision making: https://www-ncbi-nlm-nih-gov.eres.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/books/NBK202146/ 

  • Examining personal bias (IAT): https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html 

• Patient Education materials are available in these UH databases:

  • AccessMedicine

  • ClinicalKey

  • DynaMed 

Check out more resources on our Consumer Health Resources LibGuide.

Sources: 

1. https://nnlm.gov/guides/intro-health-literacy

2. https://medlineplus.gov/healthliteracy.html

3. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30146407/

4. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Don-Nutbeam/publication/315091628_World_Health_Organisation_Discussion_Paper_Promoting_measuring_and_implementing_health_literacy_-_Implications_for_policy_and_practice_in_non-communicable_disease_prevention_and_control_httpwwwwhointg/links/58c9f55d458515e9298a0b88/World-Health-Organisation-Discussion-Paper-Promoting-measuring-and-implementing-health-literacy-Implications-for-policy-and-practice-in-non-communicable-disease-prevention-and-control-http-wwwwhoi.pdf

5. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32302535/