The field of health literacy has evolved from one focused on individuals to one that recognizes that health literacy is multidimensional. While communicating in a health literate manner is important for everyone, it is particularly important when communicating with those with limited health literacy who also experience more serious medication errors, higher rates of hospitalization and use of the emergency room, poor health outcomes, and increased mortality. Over the past decade, research has shown that health literacy interventions can significantly impact various areas including health care costs, outcomes, and health disparities.

To understand the extent to which health literacy has been shown to be effective at contributing to the Quadruple Aim of improving the health of communities, providing better care, providing affordable care, and improving the experience of the health care team, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened a public workshop on building the case for health literacy. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop, and highlights important lessons about the role of health literacy in meeting the Quadruple Aim, case studies of organizations that have adopted health literacy, and discussions among the different stakeholders involved in making the case for health literacy.

Contents

• The National Academies of SCIENCES • ENGINEERING • MEDICINE
• PLANNING COMMITTEE ON BUILDING THE CASE FOR HEALTH LITERACY
• ROUNDTABLE ON HEALTH LITERACY
• Reviewers
• Acknowledgments
• Acronyms and Abbreviations
• 1. Introduction
  • ORGANIZATION OF THE PROCEEDINGS
• 2. The Patient Perspective on the Need for Health Literacy
  • DISCUSSION
• 3. Improving Health and the Bottom Line: The Case for Health Literacy
  • PRESENTATION OF THE COMMISSIONED PAPER
  • DISCUSSION
• 4. Why Health Literacy?
  • A PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANY PERSPECTIVE ON WHY HEALTH LITERACY MATTERS
  • ACHIEVING THE QUADRUPLE AIM: HEALTH LITERACY INTERVENTIONS AS AN ESSENTIAL COMPONENT
  • DISCUSSION
• 5. Adopting Health Literacy in an Organization
  • WHAT RESEARCH SHOWS ABOUT ADOPTING AND IMPLEMENTING HEALTH LITERACY IN A HEALTH ORGANIZATION
  • A CASE STUDY: ADOPTING HEALTH LITERACY IN A HEALTH PLAN
  • A CASE STUDY: ADOPTING HEALTH LITERACY IN A PUBLIC HEALTH SYSTEM
  • DISCUSSION
• 6. Where Do We Go from Here?
  • MODERATED PANEL DISCUSSION
  • DISCUSSION
• 7. Reflections on the Day
• References
• APPENDIXES
  • Appendix A. Workshop Agenda
  • Appendix B. Biographical Sketches of Workshop Moderators, Speakers, and Panelists
  • Appendix C. Improving Health and the Bottom Line: The Case for Health Literacy
    Stan Hudson, R. V. Rikard, Ioana Staiculescu, and Karen Edison.

Rapporteur: Joe Alper.

Suggested citation:

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2018. Building the case for health literacy: Proceedings of a workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: https://doi.org/10.17226/25068.