Thomas Adams, Program Officer and Team Leader, Missouri Health Literacy Enhancement Program, Missouri Foundation for Health
In 2004 the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released a landmark report on the state of health literacy in the United States. That report, Health Literacy: A Prescription to End Confusion, pulled together a growing body of information indicating that health literacy deficits are both common – present in nearly half of the U.S. population – and damaging to individual health and well-being. The report also provided a definition of health literacy that has become standard in the field: “the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic information and services needed to make
10/6/2008 — 233KB