Welcome to a re-launch of the CDC Health Literacy blog. The blog is a forum for news, activities and research relevant to health literacy and public health. We aim for weekly posts to keep the information current.  

A new contribution to the health literacy field is the Ten Attributes of Health Literate Health Care Organizations. This discussion paper provides steps health care organizations can take to make it easier for people to use the health care system.  The Institute of Medicine publicly vetted the idea of health literate attributes in a commissioned white paper and at a November 2011 workshop.    

The ten attributes fit with Goals 1, 2 and 4 of the National Action Plan to Improve Health Literacy (Action Plan), which marked its second anniversary in May 2012. The attributes paper lists many of the strategies and actions in the Action Plan and expands the number of actions to reflect new information since the Action Plan was developed. 

In addition to the Action Plan, the attributes list draws on other resources and tools that include the  

• National Standards on Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services
• health literacy items in the Consumer Assessment of Health Plans Survey
• checklists in the Health Literacy Universal Precautions Toolkit
• assessment forms in the guide, The Health Literacy Environment of Hospitals and Health Centers

Our knowledge about how to improve health literacy as a means to improve the quality, safety and outcomes of healthcare services is well-developed and growing steadily. Now we need leading health care organizations to apply the tools and resources in a systematic and comprehensive manner and evaluate and publicly report the results.

Although the body of knowledge about health literacy in public health situations is not as well developed, how can the Ten Attributes of Health Literate Health Care Organizations help public health organizations? How can a health literacy focus improve the quality and safety of public health services and population health outcomes?  

Please send us your comments on these questions and suggestions for topics of future blogs.

Today is one year and one month after the public release of the National Action Plan to Improve Health Literacy. The Health Literacy Workgroup at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) sponsored the Action Plan, and we have spent the last year promoting it as a strategic planning tool. The plan has broad goals and strategies that cover every sector and organization in our society that provides health information and services.

Yet, even though this is a national plan, it can be used by one organization or a small group of organizations to identify their own action steps to improve health literacy. The National Action Plan is the tool to help you think strategically about your contribution to health literacy improvement. You can use CDC’s planning tool to help you with the process.

We will bring down the barriers to health literacy when we take action at all levels of our society – in the most overtaxed primary care clinics and in the big city health departments and government agencies that create and distribute health information on a mass scale. 

If you want ideas about what organizations large and small already are doing to improve health literacy, check out the postings on the LINCS Health Literacy listserv for the week of April 25, 2011. Happy Anniversary!

This week on the LINCS health literacy listserv (free to join), Julie McKinney, the list moderator, and Michael Villaire, the Institute for Healthcare Advancement, are hosting an online  storytelling event. They invited organizations using goals and strategies from the National Action Plan to Improve Health Literacy to share stories of how the plan helped them in their work.  You can read the stories on the listserv web page.

I asked Michele Erikson and Dr. Paul Smith of Wisconsin Literacyif I could share their story (I have edited it for length and clarity. You can read the original post on the listserv web page.) Michele and Paul’s story conveys the power of individual and group action coupled with an agenda for change. See if you can identify how the Action Plan goals and strategies have influenced their work.  

A Health Literacy Story from Wisconsin

Once upon a time there was a doctor in Madison, Wisconsin who didn’t understand why his patients weren’t following his instructions. “Hmm….” he wondered, “could something else be going on here, or am I just not communicating well?” 

He thought low reading skills might be a factor. After finding literacy data, he was shocked! 

“How could a problem THIS BIG happen and I didn’t even know about it?!!” he exclaimed.

He did an Internet search on “Literacy in Wisconsin” and found a small, statewide literacy organization.  He asked to join the board of directors.  Within a year he and the director organized the first Wisconsin Health Literacy Summit, uniting about 40 literacy and health care providers to discuss how they could work together to make health information understandable for everybody.

The doctor developed a moving PowerPoint presentation, including patient stories and suggestions to address health literacy.  He shared it with every health and education organization that would allow him. Like Johnny Appleseed, he planted health literacy seeds everywhere he went.  It wasn’t long before a buzz began and many requests came in for him to present all over the state and beyond. 

There was so much demand, the literacy organization director and the doctor held a second Health Literacy Summit and created a statewide grassroots effort involving volunteers in health care and literacy from all four corners of the state. Soon, the state literacy organization and its committees were sharing health literacy practices in their health care organizations and training literacy tutors in health literacy practices and health curricula resources for adult learners.

 They developed partnerships and shared information with initiatives in other states. The literacy organization developed a new website dedicated to sharing health literacy information and hired its first health literacy coordinator to plan and evaluate health literacy efforts.

Long story short, a third and fourth Wisconsin Health Literacy Summit allowed evidence-based health literacy practices and interventions to be shared with everyone. New partnerships were formed, and actionable interventions and tools were shared. Other states began to develop their own health literacy plans thanks to the CDC Action Plan workbook.

Thank you Michele and Paul for this story. Even though most stories eventually have an end, the health literacy improvement story continues. What is your story with the National Action Plan?