This Type of Illiteracy Could Hurt You via NYT

This Type of Illiteracy Could Hurt You

1 Health Literacy

of Older Adults:

Reshaping the Landscape

More than half of older Americans lack the skills to gather and understand medical information. Providers must simplify, researchers say.

NYT: 12.21.2018 by Paula Span

Every time her parents pick up a new prescription at a Walgreens in Houston, they follow Duyen Pham-Madden’s standing instructions: Use the iPad she bought for them, log onto FaceTime, hold up the pill bottles for her examination.

Her mother, 79, and father, 77, need numerous medications, but have trouble grasping when and how to take them.

The label may say to take one pill three times a day, but “my dad might take one a day,” said Ms. Pham-Madden, 56, an insurance purchasing agent in Blue Springs, Mo. “Or take three at a time.”

So she interprets the directions for them, also reminding her mother to take the prescribed megadose of vitamin D, for osteoporosis, only weekly, not daily.

Part of their struggle, Ms. Pham-Madden believes, stems from language barriers. The family emigrated from Vietnam in 1975, and while her parents speak and read English, they lack the fluency of native speakers.

But recently, Ms. Pham-Madden said, her father posed a question that anyone grappling with Medicare drug coverage might ask: “What’s the doughnut hole?”

Researchers refer to this type of knowledge as “health literacy,” meaning a person’s ability to obtain and understand the basic information neededto make appropriate health decisions [1].

Can someone read a pamphlet and then determine how often to undergo a particular medical test? Look at a graph and recognize a normal weight range for her height? Ascertain whether her insurance will cover a certain procedure?

Most American adults — 53 percent — have intermediate health literacy, a national survey found in 2006; they can perform "moderately challenging" activities [2], like reading denser texts and handling unfamiliar arithmetic.

Just 12 percent rank as “proficient,” the highest category. About a fifth have “basic” health literacy that could cause problems, and 14 percent score “below basic.” Health literacy differs by education level, race, poverty and other factors.

And it varies dramatically by age. While the proportion of adults with intermediate literacy ranges from 53 to 58 percent in other age groups, it falls to 38 percent among those 65 and older. The percentage of older adults with basic or below basic literacy is higher than in any other age group; only 3 percent qualify as proficient.  READ MORE >>

2 The Health Literacy of America’s Adults:

Results from the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy, Healthy People 2020

Literacy Reports & Statistics

Health

Quick Guide to Health Literacy and Older Adults, US Dept HHS

2018: How Health Literacy Got Started, Helen Osborne

2017: Hidden Cost of Healthcare System Complexity, Accenture

2015: Health Literacy & Patient Engagement, 12th Annual Report, US HHS Sep 2015

2011: Health Literacy Interventions Outcomes: Updated Systematic Rvw, AHRQ

2010: Health Literacy, NNLM

2010: Health Literacy: Accurate Accessible Actionable Health Info. for All, CDC

2009: Reaching America’s Health Potential Among Adults, RWJ Foundation

2009: Low Health Literacy, NAAL 2003

2004: Literacy and Health in America, ETS