At a glance
Conduct an assessment to see what opportunities or barriers are present to address health literacy issues in your organization. Make sure to engage multiple partners and review the tools and resources below to get started.
Overview
Your organization can't address its health literacy issues if it doesn't know its current situation. It's easy to make assumptions, but you need data. Do an honest assessment to identify opportunities and barriers to make progress on health literacy.
As you conduct your assessment, engage multiple interested parties, and choose from these tools to help you get started.
Public health organizations and their partners, as well as clinical care groups, may find the following resources to be helpful. There's still a need to help organizations address health literacy issues for the people they serve.
General assessment tools
- (Harvard School of Public Health, 2019)
- (Unity Point Health, 2014)
- (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2010)
- (Harvard School of Public Health, 2010)
- (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2007)
Train the workforce
Our Find Training page has training opportunities in health literacy, plain language, and culture and communication.
Develop materials that are easy to understand and act on
- ob体育 Clear Communication Index (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2014)
- (The Plain Language Action and Information Network, 2011)
Meet the needs of audiences with a range of health literacy skills
- (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality 2010)
- (Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality 2009)
- (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health) can help organizations address the cultural and language differences between the people who provide information and services and the people they serve.
Provide easy access to health information and services
See the resources below for information about accessible and usable health information, including websites.
- (National Institutes of Health National Library of Medicine 2011)
- (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality National Resource Center for Health IT 2007)
- (U.S. General Services Administration, Technology Transformation Services)
See the resources below for information on how to improve the readability of consent forms and other print materials for participants in health care research.
- (Group Health Research Institute)