Health Literacy

What is health literacy?

Health literacy is about a person’s ability to understand and use information to make decisions about their health.

A user with low health literacy will generally struggle to:

• read and understand health information
• know how to act on this information
• know which health services to use and when to use them

Research shows that:

• more than 4 in 10 adults struggle with health content for the public
• more than 6 in 10 adults struggle with health content that includes numbers and statistics

This is because a lot of health content is written, often unintentionally, for people with higher health literacy skills.

Why health literacy is important

Low health literacy has been linked to a range of important problems.

These include:

• unhealthy lifestyles and poor general health
• low use of preventative services, like vaccinations and screening
• difficulty taking medicines correctly
• increased A&E attendances and hospital admissions
• reduced life expectancy

It’s estimated that health literacy-related problems like these account for up to 5% of national health spending.

Health literacy is also a health inequality issue. There is a close link between socio-economic deprivation and low health literacy.

Check out the resources below to learn more about health literacy!