Health Literacy

By Cindy Brach, MPP, Senior Health Care Researcher, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and Bernard Rosof, MD, MACP, Professor of Medicine, Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/NorthwellThe U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has developed a roadmap to drive the health care system to deliver better value...

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is fortunate to have an active health literacy workgroup that represents over a dozen agencies. Its mission is to advance health literacy across our department. HHS currently defines health literacy as the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information needed to make appropriate health decisions...

The HHS Health Literacy Workgroup invites everyone to celebrate by participating in health literacy activities throughout the month. Read this blog post to learn how you can get involved.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), today's health services are not fit for the 21st-century challenges. Globally, more than 400 million people lack access to essential health care. Where health care is accessible, it is often fragmented and of poor quality. However, WHO’s newly launched framework on integrated people-centred health services is a call for a fundamental shift in the way we fund, manage, and deliver health services. It sustains countries’ progress towards universal health coverage by shifting away from health systems designed around diseases and health institutions towards health systems designed for people.