Enhancing Written Communications to Address Health Literacy

Health literacy is defined as the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions. Poor health literacy affects nearly one in two United States adults and greatly increases the cost of healthcare. Most patient education materials are written at a grade level too high to understand. This article describes how to write and design printed patient education materials to make them more understandable and usable. A review of reading tests to determine grade level and design appropriateness is provided. A comprehensive guide for writing patient education materials is presented. The need for continuous evaluation of written materials is discussed.