October is Health Literacy Month, and here at Engaging the Patient, we are marking the event in style. We’ve collected a roster of national experts to blog their own takes on the challenges of health literacy in America. Over the course of October, we’ll hear from academics, clinicians and noted writers.
Look for something new nearly every day of the month. National leaders and emerging voices will discuss topics including Universal Precautions Toolkit, the National Action Plan to Improve Health Literacy, Project RED, best practices and personal experiences and challenges.
In many ways health literacy comes down to communicating effectively with patients. Low literacy and communication breakdown has been linked to poor health outcomes such as higher rates of hospitalization and less frequent use of preventative services – as they more often use services designed to treat complications of disease instead. Both of these outcomes are associated with higher healthcare costs.
- Cindy Brach, Senior Health Policy Researcher at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)
- Cynthia Baur, Ph.D, Senior Health Literacy Advisor at the Center for Disease Control (CDC)
- Gary Schwitzer, publisher of HealthNews.org
- Dr. Rima Rudd, Harvard University Senior Lecturer on Society
- Dr. Darren DeWalt, Associate Professor of Medicine University of North Carolina
- Dr. Hilary Seligman, Assistant professor of medicine University of California San Francisco
- Dr. Matthew Wynia, Director of the Institute for Ethics at the American Medical Association
- Andrew Jager, MA, Research Assistant at the American Medical Association Institute for Ethics
