Director's Blog
Health Marketing Musings
from Jay M. Bernhardt, PhD, MPH
Health Literacy is the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions, as defined by the National Library of Medicine and as used in Healthy People 2010. According to the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL), more than 77 million adults in the US demonstrate basic or below basic health literacy skills.
This issue is incredibly important for health marketing and health communication because health literacy affects how well people understand and apply health information to make informed decisions about their health. Health literacy requires more than the ability to read health messages. Functional health literacy requires an ability to comprehend and exchange complex information, such as following directions for taking medicines, making informed decisions about treatment options, navigating through the health care system, and understanding what health protection measures to take for one's family. These challenges are made even more significant with the incredible growth and access to online health information.
For Americans age 65 years and older, lower health literacy can further complicate existing health problems. On December 6-7, 2007, the National Center for Health Marketing convened and Expert Panel on Improving Health Literacy for Older Adults. This panel brought together diverse experts to review and discuss health literacy issues for older adults and to identify opportunities for public health professionals to better meet their health communication needs. Many thanks to Dr. Cynthia Baur, the Director of the NCHM's Division of Health Communication and Marketing for spearheading this effort and bringing together this stellar group, which included leading scholars, service providers and public health professionals. The panelists shared useful insights that will be instrumental to our efforts to identify key questions and translate the issues into a research agenda to set priorities for health literacy improvement.
Health literacy remains one of NCHM's priorities and we have undertaken a number of other activities in this area. We provide consultation on developing plain language messages and materials across CDC, led by Sarah Gregory. We have developed a Health Literacy Certificate program that is training CDC employees in the principles and methods of clear communication, and we are developing a web-based version of this training for all public health professionals. We supported the Surgeon General's Workshop on Improving Health Literacy and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Town Halls on Improving Health Literacy. The first town hall occurred in New York City on October 16, 2007. Three more are scheduled during the first half of 2008.
NCHM's vision is a world where all people actively use accessible, accurate, relevant, and timely health information and interventions to protect and promote their health and the health of their families and communities. Clearly, this vision is not possible without a significant focus on health literacy. We hope you share this vision and will do your part to help address this significant health marketing and communication challenge.
Note: Last week, we discovered and repaired a problem with the blog comment email address (nchminfo@cdc.gov). Please resend any comments on my previous blog postings.
Posted by Jay on Monday, December 17, 2007 at 11:00am ET
Submit a comment
Jay,
As important as literacy is, the ability to process and understand basic health information is limited by the findability of that information online, as more and more searchers are turning to the internet first to find health information. What is the CDC doing to incent health providers to share their expertise online since current offerings rarely go further than shallow encyclopedic articles about conditions and treatments. How can the CDC deepen the knowledge base online?
At MedHelp.org, our physicians provide deep & detailed health education, and find that by doing so, they've garnered many referrals to increase their patient base. Can the CDC help link to reliable resources like ours?
Enoch Choi, MD
Urgent Care Medical Informatician, Palo Alto Medical Foundation
http://www.medhelp.org/doctors/enoch-choi/index.html
Comment
Hi Jay (if I may),
I really like what you are doing with the blogging/web 2.0 and the CDC. One of the things that we have launched is Insidermedicine (www.insidermedicine.com)- a physician-led news organization that now creates about 5-10 EBM videos per day. Some healthcare bloggers are embedding the videos in their blogs- you can feel free to do this if it suits your needs.
Sanjay Sharma MD, FRCS, MS (Epid), MBA
Editor in Chief, Insidermedicine
Professor, Departments of Ophthalmology and Epidemiology, Queens University
Comment
Jay,
It is important to realize that Americans are not guaranteed a right to health; they are guaranteed the right to the pursuit of health. The distinction is in the use of various methods to access health and the right to pick and choose which "system" best serves the individual's needs/wants. Capitalistic medical systems that make a profit from disease promotion and drug prescriptions serve good purpose by promoting research. It is when those same capitalistic interests define (and therefore limit) the population's base of knowledge about health that we have a system of care that undermines the general health of the American population. Health is a relationship, not a formulaic prescription.
Phyllis Pitts-Hammonds
Population Health Office
Fulton County Department of Health and Wellness
Comment