Promoting Health Literacy to Encourage Prevention and Wellness

Health literacy has been shown to affect health outcomes. The use of preventive services improves health and prevents costly health care expenditures. Several studies have found that health literacy makes a difference in the extent to which populations use preventive services. On September 15, 2009, the Institute of Medicine Roundtable on Health Literacy held a workshop to explore approaches to integrate health literacy into primary and secondary prevention.Promoting Health Literacy to Encourage Prevention and Wellness serves as a factual account of the discussion that took place at the workshop. The report describes the inclusion of health literacy into public health prevention programs at the national, state, and local levels; reviews how insurance companies factor health literacy into their prevention programs; and discusses industry contributions to providing health literate primary and secondary prevention.Table of ContentsFront Matter1 Introduction2 The Role of Health Literacy in Primary and Secondary Prevention3 Commissioned Paper on Integrating Health Literacy into Primaryand Secondary Prevention Strategies4 Panel Reactions5 Intersection of Health Literacy and Public Health preventionPrograms6 How Do Insurance Companies Factor Health Literacy into PreventionPrograms and Information for Enrollees ?7 Industry Contributions to Providing Health Literate Primary andSecondary Prevention8 The Potential and Challenges of Highlighting Health LiteracyReferencesAppendix A: Workshop AgendaAppendix B: Workshop Speaker BiosketchesAppendix C: Commissioned Paper