The article did a poor job describing what "health literacy" is. Or maybe my literacy level is low.
I inferred that it was label reading (or at least, label reading related), as the example given was looking for "salt" versus looking for "sodium" on a label.
1. Is this a serious problem for the American health care system, or is "intermediate" health literacy sufficient? Is increasing the average level of health literacy to "proficient" a realistic and desirable goal?I wonder who they compared us to. Obviously, Africans would have zero health literacy, since their food probably doesn't include nutritional information. That's if there's food at all.
I think we create these complex, obscure problems (like "health literacy") to explain things that boil down to: we are human. Not everybody cares what's on a label. Maybe they should, but they don't. If you aren't interested in a topic, chances are you will be ignorant about it.
2. How can patients be better educated about health matter? How can the health care system communicate more effectively?Mandatory classes? Again, since the problem ("health literacy") is poorly defined, the solution is also poorly defined.
For example, from the article:
QUOTE
Most adults can determine at what age their children should get vaccinated or discern from a label when to take their medicine, but they still need help understanding many basic health instructions
I would consider "basic health instructions" to include when to take your medicine. I would consider calculating a diet, counting carbs, or limiting salt intake as more advanced "skills".
Do we want people to become better label readers? Add it to the health curriculum in high school. Do we want people to know how many calories makes up a healthy diet? Ditto.
But high school health isn't going to help baby boomers. The article says that older people are less literate in health. Maybe this just takes time. Maybe we need to define the problem better and figure out what benefits improving health literacy will have.