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What is Health Literacy?

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 Let’s kick off Health Information Week 2023 by looking at Health Literacy.

Health Literacy is about individuals being able to understand health information such that they are empowered to make good health decisions and have positive health outcomes. You need to be aware of the issues that impact on patient health literacy and how you can accommodate them, in order to support your patients.

53.4% of people in Stoke on Trent struggle to understand health information. That number rises to 72.3% of people who struggle to understand health information when it includes numbers [source: http://healthliteracy.geodata.uk/ 2023].

info card with the health literacy numbers for stoke on trent as described in the text

What can you do to make sure you are communicating effectively with your patients?

Complete the short, online Health Literacy programme on the e-Learning for Health Hub (E-LfH). UHNM staff can also access the Health Literacy programme from the ESR. Learn more about health literacy and some techniques you can use when discussing health issues with patients such as teach-back and chunk & check.

Check the Health Literacy tool to get the health literacy levels for the population that you support - how many people might struggle to understand health information?

Learn more about the impacts of poor health literacy from NIHR - health information: are you getting your message across

Check more from our blog this week as we highlight good sources of patient information.

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