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Health Information Literacy

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Health Literacy Resources

Website
Description
Note: only noncommercial Websites are linked
California Health Literacy Initiative Description of this special initiative of California Literacy, an adult and family literacy organization. “The goal of the California Health Literacy Initiative is to inform and partner with individuals and organizations to craft collective, lasting solutions that will positively impact the health and well-being of individuals with low-literacy skills, their families, and their communities.”
The Center for the Study of Adult Literacy Provides ordering information for the Test of Functional Health Literacy in Adults (TOFHLA) from Peppercorn Books and Press.
Healthy People 2010: Health Communication - Objective 11 Describes rationale (current environment, trends and issues) and objectives for health communication. Includes "Attributes of Effective Health Communication."
Harvard School of Public Health: Health Literacy Studies Health Literacy Studies "is a research program (Rudd, P.I) of the National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy (NCSALL). We are engaged in a variety of activities, studies, and explorations linking health and literacy."
Information Literacy and Consumer Health White Paper [PDF] Grant, S. Information Literacy and Consumer Health. [Web document] 2002. [cited 29 Oct 2004]. <http://www.nclis.gov/libinter/infolitconf&meet/papers/grant-fullpaper.pdf> [PDF]

White Paper prepared for UNESCO, the U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science, and the National Forum on Information Literacy, for use at the Literacy Meeting of Experts, Prague, The Czech Republic.
Institute for Healthcare Advancement (IHA): Health Literacy Resources related to IHA book series, health literacy conference, health literacy program.
Literacy and Health Outcomes This Evidence Report/Technology Assessment on "Literacy and Health Outcomes": is from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). Under its Evidence-based Practice Program, the AHRQ "is developing scientific information for other agencies and organizations on which to base clinical guidelines, performance measures, and other quality improvement tools."
National Academy on an Aging Society: Fact Sheet Based on "data from a nationally representative sample of the U.S. adult population age 16 and older, the National Academy on an Aging Society examined the impact of literacy on the use of health care services" to create the fact sheet "Low Health Literacy Skills Increase Annual Health Care Expenditures By $73 Billion.”
National Adult Literacy Database (NALD) (Canada) Available in English or French, the site includes“Overview of health literacy” in the US and Canada, “Key issues to consider” in health and patient literacy, and “Profiles of health literacy initiatives in Canada.” Includes issue of plain language; focuses on patient literacy.
NALD Health Literacy Project, Phase 1 This NALD project, Needs Assessment of the Health Education & Information Needs of Hard-to-Reach Patients (Centre for Literacy of Québec, in collaboration with Montreal General Hospital/McGill University Health Centre) includes "Background Document on Literacy and Health" [PDF], and "Report of Needs Assessment" [PDF].
National Center on the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy (NCSALL) NCSALL seeks to give "those teaching, managing, and setting policy in adult literacy education a sound basis for making decisions."

See especially their newsletter "Literacy and Health. Focus on Basics", Volume 5, Issue C, Feb. 2002 [HTML format | [PDF]]
National Library of Medicine (NLM) bibliographies
National Network of Libraries of Medicine With the "Consumer Health: An Online Manual - Health Literacy" the site offers librarians definitions, skills, and description of the role of a consumer health librarian.
Pfizer Clear Health Communication Initiative http://www.pfizerhealthliteracy.com
Includes information on "The Scope and Impact of this Growing Health Issue,""Statistics At-a-Glance," and "Signs of Low Health Literacy."
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Grant Results Report The study, Effects of Illiteracy on Patient-Provider Interactions, "assessed the prevalence of inadequate health literacy among patients presenting for outpatient acute care in two urban public hospitals, one in Atlanta and one in Los Angeles."
World Education Publications Under the heading "Literacy and Health Initiative", the Health and Literacy Compendium is an "annotated bibliography of print and Web-based health materials for use with limited-literacy adults” developed by World Education in collaboration with the National Institute for Literacy." The Compendium list includes "curricula, videos, readers, student-created materials, guides for developing and assessing low-literacy materials, and bibliographies and databases. Each material has a description, information on how to order hard copies if available, and a direct Web link, if available."
[ HTML version | PDF version [PDF]]

 

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