Health Literacy Month is celebrated every year in October and is the ideal time to educate and promote awareness about health literacy. Maybe there wasn’t enough time to educate about health literacy at your organization in the past due to so many competing priorities. Perhaps you truly didn’t feel the need to educate your staff about individual and community health literacy. However, health literacy is more important than ever as it impacts many outcomes such as individual health behaviors, family and community relationships, and organizational processes and policies.
Health literacy is a dynamic, collaborative and mutually beneficial proficiency. It incorporates prior health knowledge and experience, individual characteristics, health status, cultural and linguistic preferences, and cognitive abilities influencing the ability of organizations, caregivers and health care recipients to access, understand, and use health information and services to make informed actionable decisions and enhance health outcomes.
The COVID-19 pandemic has placed a brighter light on the essential role that health literacy has when communicating accessible public health information and helping all communities to trust and understand health messaging.
Health Literacy Partners offers a variety of services that can be tailored to your organization’s goals and the specific needs of the communities you serve. Let’s discuss how we can partner. We can all do better!