Why Consumers need to be Health Literate

Written By

Phillips Group

This insights post is a summary of the blog post published by Phillips Group. View the full post at: Why health consumers need to be health literate.

According to the Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care, nearly 60% of adult Australians have low health literacy.

To address this issue, the government has begun to  prioritise health literacy as a key factor in improving health outcomes and care quality. Various activities have occurred within and outside the health system aimed at health promotion, health protection, disease prevention, health care maintenance, and clearer communication between healthcare providers and patients.

A National Health Literacy Strategy, part of the National Preventive Health Strategy 2021–2030, is under development. In Queensland, specific strategies target local populations based on unique demographic needs, tailoring approaches accordingly.

This post addresses several topics including:

• Health literacy and population health: Understanding health literacy from a population health (health outcomes of a group of individuals) perspective
• Impact of COVID-19 pandemic: How it highlighted the gap between health communication and the health literacy needs of both the wider population and in different communities
• Improving consumer health literacy: Improving individual health literacy requires addressing the skills, knowledge, motivation and capacity of a person to access, understand, appraise and apply information

To get details on each of these insights, you can visit the original post: Why health consumers need to be health literate.