Excerpt

The Institute of Medicine Roundtable on Health Literacy serves to educate the public, press, and policy makers regarding issues of health literacy. To examine what is known about measures of health literacy, the Roundtable convened a planning committee (see Appendix A) to develop a workshop agenda that would address the following issues: The current status of measures of health literacy, including those used in the health care setting; Possible surrogate measures that might be used to assess health literacy; and Ways in which health literacy measures can be used to assess patient-centered approaches to care.

Contents

• The National Academies
• Members of the Planning Group for the Workshop on Measures of Health Literacy
• Roundtable on Health Literacy
• Reviewers
• in memoriam
• Acknowledgments
• 1. Introduction
• 2. An Overview of Measures of Health Literacy
  • HEALTH LITERACY MEASUREMENT: MAPPING THE TERRAIN
  • THE IMPORTANCE OF A NATIONAL DATASET FOR HEALTH LITERACY
  • NAAL DATA: TO USE OR NOT TO USE?
  • HEALTH LITERACY MEASUREMENT: A BRIEF REVIEW AND PROPOSAL
  • DISCUSSION
• 3. Approaches to Assessing Health Literacy
  • WHAT IS HEALTH LITERACY AND HOW DO WE MEASURE IT?
  • DISCUSSION
  • REFINING AND STANDARIZING HEALTH LITERACY ASSESSMENT: ENGLISH AND SPANISH ITEM BANKS
  • DISCUSSION
  • SELF-REPORT MEASURES OF HEALTH LITERACY
  • DISCUSSION
  • MEASURING THE FUNCTION IN FUNCTIONAL HEALTH LITERACY
  • HEALTH LITERACY AND CANCER PREVENTION: DO PEOPLE UNDERSTAND WHAT THEY HEAR?
  • DISCUSSION
• 4. Population-Based Approaches to Assessing Health Literacy
  • DEMOGRAPHIC ASSESSMENT FOR HEALTH LITERACY
  • MAPPING HEALTH LITERACY
  • DISCUSSION
• 5. Measuring Health System Responses to Health Literacy
  • AMERICA’S HEALTH INSURANCE PLANS‘ RESPONSE TO HEALTH LITERACY
  • AN ACCREDITOR’S EFFORT TO PUSH THE PUBLIC POLICY AGENDA FORWARD
  • DEVELOPING AND TESTING A CAHPS^® HEALTH LITERACY ITEM SET
  • PROMOTING EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION: THE JOINT COMMISSION’S EFFORTS TO ADDRESS CULTURE, LANGUAGE, AND HEALTH LITERACY
  • DISCUSSION
• 6. Measuring Health Literacy: What? So What? Now What?
  • DISCUSSION
• References
• Appendixes
  • A Workshop Agenda
  • B Workshop Speaker Biosketches
  • C CAHPS^® Clinician & Group Survey: Health Literacy Item Set

Lyla M Hernandez, Rapporteur.

This study was supported by contracts between the National Academy of Sciences and the Academy for Educational Development (Unnumbered Award); Affinity Health Plan (Unnumbered Award); American Academy of Family Physicians (Unnumbered Award); Johnson & Johnson (Unnumbered Award); Kaiser Permanente (Unnumbered Award); Merck & Co., Inc. (Unnumbered Award); Missouri Foundation for Health (08-048-HL-8); and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (N01-OD-4-2139, TO#148).

Suggested citation:

IOM (Institute of Medicine). 2009. Measures of Health Literacy: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the organizations or agencies that provided support for this project.

NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine.