Promoting Health Literacy to Encourage Prevention and Wellness

Download or read book Promoting Health Literacy to Encourage Prevention and Wellness written by Institute of Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2011-12-01 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Health literacy has been shown to affect health outcomes. The use of preventive services improves health and prevents costly health care expenditures. Several studies have found that health literacy makes a difference in the extent to which populations use preventive services. On September 15, 2009, the Institute of Medicine Roundtable on Health Literacy held a workshop to explore approaches to integrate health literacy into primary and secondary prevention. Promoting Health Literacy to Encourage Prevention and Wellness serves as a factual account of the discussion that took place at the workshop. The report describes the inclusion of health literacy into public health prevention programs at the national, state, and local levels; reviews how insurance companies factor health literacy into their prevention programs; and discusses industry contributions to providing health literate primary and secondary prevention.