What is the new health literacy component of NAAL?
The health literacy component of the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) is the first-ever national assessment designed specifically to measure adults’ ability to use literacy skills to read and understand health-related information. The health literacy score produced by the NAAL health literacy component establishes a baseline for future assessments of health literacy. The score, for example, will help the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to gauge progress toward its Healthy People 2010 goal “to improve the health literacy of persons with inadequate or marginal literacy skills” (HHS 2000). Sponsored by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) in the U.S. Department of Education, NAAL is a nationally representative assessment of the English language literacy skills of Americans age 16 and older. The NAAL health literacy component, first administered as part of the 2003 NAAL, was developed at the request of and in partnership with HHS. What is
