Hi Everyone,

I was recently looking for a good Health Literacy Fact Sheet, and did
not find any that were very up-to-date. So I am working on a new one,
and as usual, am asking for your help! I want to compile a short list of
compelling health literacy facts that would provide justification for
the importance of the work we are doing. 

This would be the kind of thing we could show to funders, legislators,
policy makers, program administrators, etc. and would encourage them to
say "Wow! Health Literacy IS an important issue for us to support!"

So please send on your favorite, most compelling and eye-opening health
literacy facts, and I will put them together. Please include references
(at least partial ones that I can look up and complete.)

Thanks so much! Here are two of my favorites:

#1:
88% of American adults have health literacy skill below the "proficient"
level. This means that they cannot…
•	Find the information needed to define a medical term in a
complex document.
•	Judge information to decide which legal document applies to a
certain health care situation.
•	Calculate a person’s share of health insurance costs for a year
using a table based on income and family size.
(Source: The Health Literacy of America’s Adults: Results from the 2003
National Assessment of Adult Literacy)

#2:
The estimated added annual cost to the health care system due to low
health literacy: $106-238 Billion

(Source: Low Health Literacy: Implications for National Health Policy
Vernon, J. Trujillo, A. Rosenbaum, S. DeBuono, B.   October 2007)

All the best,
Julie


Julie McKinney
Health Literacy List Moderator
World Education
jmckinney at worlded.org