Low Health Literacy: How It Term Paper

There has now been established an unmistakable link between a patient's overall health and the ability to understand and act on medical instructions and health information. Addressing the link between health literacy and health outcomes challenges all of us to engage patients with good, clear information," said AHIP President and CEO Karen Ignagni (Board, 2005)."

Some officials believe the answers are buried in such statistics as the number of patients who make medication mistakes. The American Association of Poison Control Centers reported that in 2002 nearly 100,000 people nationwide inadvertently took the wrong medication or the wrong dose. Another 20,000 took someone else's medication. And another 21,000 took their medications too close together, or were confused about the amounts or took more than one product containing the same ingredient. And these were just patients who called the center (Riley, 2003)."

Conclusion

As health issues continue to impact society, and medical science continues to raise not only the average lifespan but the standard of living because of the ability to control many diseases that used to mean death the importance of health literacy continues to rise.

It is important to implement a nationwide program that will encourage patients to ask questions, encourage doctors to explain their decisions and encourage pharmacists to counsel every patient that picks up a prescription. Many patients are self-conscious about admitting they don't understand the medication instructions and will not ask, therefore it is important to make counseling a part of every pick up without asking the patient if they want to be counseled.

References

____(2002) Study: failure to understand prescription drug information contributes to poor health outcomes. (Database Notes).(Health Literacy Initiative)

Health Care Strategic Management

____(2003) Literacy Skills Are Strongest Predictor of Health Status in United States; New Coalition Unveils Action Agenda, Tools to Elevate 'Health Literacy' Among at-Risk Populations. PR Newswire

____(2005) AHIP Board Adopts Health Literacy Program. PR Newswire

Riley, Rochelle (2003) Campaign eliminates illiteracy barrier to good health.Detroit Free Press (Detroit, MI)

Lee, P.P. (1999). Why literacy matters: Links between reading ability and health. Archives of Ophthalmology, 117, 1.

Marwick, D. (1997). Patients' lack of literacy may contribute to billions of dollars in higher hospital costs. The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), 278, (12), 971-972.

Meade, C., & Byrd, J. (1989). Patient literacy and the readability of smoking education literature. American Journal Public Health, 204-206.

Miles, S., & Davis, T (1995). Patients Who Can't Read. Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), (17), 19-1720.

Osborne, H. (1999). Creating medical forms people can understand, www.healthliteracy.com

Pappas, G., Queen, S., Hadden, W., Fisher, G. (1993). The increasing disparity in mortality between socioeconomic groups in the United States, 1960 and 1986. The New England Journal of Medicine, 329, 103-109.

Reese, S. (1996). Illiteracy at work. American Demographics, 18, 14-15.

Robert, S.A. (1999). Socioeconomic position and health: The independent contribution of community socioeconomic context. Annual Review of Sociology, 25, 489-516.

Rudd, R.E., Zacharia, S.M., & Daube, K. (1998). Integrating health and literacy: Adult educator's experiences. Boston, MA: National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy.

Sanders-Phillips, K., & Davis, S. (1998). Improving prenatal care services for low-income African-American women and infants. Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, 9, (1), 14-26.

Showstack, J. (1992). Health of the public: The academic response, 267, 2497-2502.

Tolan, M. (1995). Illiteracy hurts patients' health care. Tucson Citizen.

Vernarec, E. (1999). Health care power shifts to the people. Business & Health, 17, 8-13.

Weiss, B.D., Hart, G., & Pust, R.E. (1991). The relationship between literacy and health. Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, 1, (4), 351-363

Williams, M. (1995). Inadequate functional health literacy among patients at two public hospitals. Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), 274, 1677-1682.

Williams, M.V., Baker, D.W., Parker, R. M, & Nurss, J.R. (1998). Relationship of functional health literacy to patients'.....