What is Health Literacy?
Date: 09/03/17
What is Health Literacy?
MHS and The Indiana Minority Health Coalition want to Maximize Your Health! Health Literacy is how well people can understand basic health information and services. This is important to make good healthcare decisions.
How Does Health Literacy Affect You?
Health literacy affects how well you understand the health care system. This includes:
- Filling out forms
- Finding providers and services
- Sharing personal information like your health history, with providers
- Knowing how to care for yourself and manage disease
Why is Health Literacy Important?
We have to understand the basics of health care so we can manage our health and prevent disease. Did you know that 14% of adults have Below Basic health literacy? That is 30 million people. Those adults are more likely to report their health as poor. They are more likely to lack health insurance than adults with better health literacy.
Low health literacy can lead to poor health outcomes. This includes more hospital stays. And, less frequent use of preventive services. Both of these also lead to higher healthcare costs. Patients with low health literacy are more likely to treat the complications of disease. Patients with higher health literacy are more likely to try to prevent disease.
MHS and the Indiana Minority Health Coalition are working together to help you Maximize Your Health! We made an online resource center with lots of great info. MHS also holds Maximize Your Health events out in the community. At these events, you can learn more about your health insurance. And, how to make the most of your benefits. Visit our website at mhsindiana.com/maximize to learn more and see the date of our next event.