• Health Professionals Section
• Overview of Health Literacy and Clear Health Communication
  • What is health literacy?
  • How prevalent is low health literacy?
  • What is clear health communication?
• Relevance to Clinical Practice and Public Health
  • How does health literacy affect patients’ health?
  • Health literacy and patient engagement
• Improving Health Communication
  • What are universal precautions for health communication?
  • How can health care professionals improve verbal communication with patients and families?
  • How do the principles of clear health communication apply to written communication?
  • What resources should health professionals consider when recommending online content to patients and families?
  • How can health care facilities be more sensitive to health literacy?
  • How can health professionals address health literacy at the public health level?
  • Resources

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Healthcare Professionals

Clear health communication is a critical component of the health care delivery system. It affects the continuum of care from prevention and screening to history taking to explaining a diagnosis and treatment.

Millions of adult Americans – 90 million – have trouble understanding health information. This is known as low health literacy, and its scope and impact has serious consequences for individual patient outcomes and the health care system as a whole. The issue of health literacy is also fundamental to efforts to reduce health disparities. Clear health communication techniques can help public health professionals reduce health disparities by ensuring that health information is delivered in easy-to-understand, actionable and culturally relevant terms.

By following the path of this section for public health professionals, you will learn about:

• The scope and impact of low health literacy in the United States
• How to identify those at greatest risk for low health literacy
• Clear health communication solutions for improving health literacy
• Grant and partnership opportunities for becoming part of the CHC movement
• Background materials and research that supports the evidence base for improving health literacy through clear health communication

Next: What is Health Literacy? >>

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