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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Christina Zarcadoolas, PhD, Community and Preventive Medicine, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, One Gustave Levy Place, New York, NY 10029, 212-241-0625, christina.zarcadoolas@mssm.edu, Andrew Pleasant, PhD, Human Ecology, Rutgers University, 55 Dudley Rd. #207, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, and David Greer, M D, School of Medicine, Brown University, Box G-A, Providence, RI 029121.

The U.S. population faces well-recognized health risks including chronic diseases, environmental degradation, and natural and man-made disasters. But there is a silent killer, less diagnosed and essentially untreated, maneuvering just below the surface that poses a great threat to public health in the 21st century. This silent killer is low health literacy – the reality that almost half of adults in the U.S., over 90 million people, struggle to find, understand, and correctly use basic health information. The consequences of low health literacy include inadequate skills to understand health and environmental health risks, to take actions to mitigate these risks, to access and use the health systems, lack of social empowerment and self- efficacy, poor health outcomes, diminished quality of life, and increased financial costs to society. We will present an elaborated model for understanding health literacy. The new model delineates the role of four core domains: fundamental literacy, science literacy, civic literacy and cultural literacy. Examples from health and environmental health messages will be used to demonstrate common problems, and present guidelines for constructing effective outreach, education and translation activities to advance public health literacy. The presentation is based on the presenteners' new book on health literacy.

Learning Objectives:

• Participants will learn principles of health literacy in the areas of science, civic and cultural literacy that they can apply to improve the daily performance of health professionals and health programs.
• Participants will be able to identify some health literacy demands their health specialty or health focus places on low health literate patients/consumers.

Keywords: Health Literacy, Cultural Competency

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation