What are the health effects of limited health literacy?
Limited literacy is associated with several adverse health outcomes, including limited health knowledge, increased incidence of chronic illness, poorer intermediate disease markers, and lower use of preventive health services. Interventions to improve literacy have been studied, and some have shown promise for improving patient health and use of health care services. The Institute of Medicine’s report reveals that persons with limited health literacy are hospitalized more often and use more emergency services. Hospital costs for such patients are $450 higher per admission than those for patients with adequate skills. Understanding health information is critical to the person’s accepting responsibility for his or her own health. Source: Literacy and Health Outcomes, AHRQ, 2004.
