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A core aim for improving health care is to provide equitable care or "care that does not vary in quality because of personal characteristics such as gender, ethnicity, geographic location, and socioeconomic status" (IOM, 2001). We believe that an essential ingredient in the effort to increase health equity and reduce health disparities is eliminating health literacy barriers. The challenge of aligning health care system demands and complexities with individual skills and abilities across the spectrum of public health and clinical delivery will be difficult, but critical in the effort to achieve health equity.In this paper, we intend to demonstrate that the concepts of health literacy, health equity, and health disparities are connected, both in practice and in research. We also explore work that can be done at their intersection through the use of examples and selective review of data. Finally, we intend to convey three important messages:

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Communication in Palliative Nursing presents the COMFORT Model, a theoretically-grounded and empirically-based model of palliative care communication. Built on over a decade of communication research with patients, families, and interdisciplinary providers, and reworked based on feedback from hundreds of nurses nationwide, the chapters outline a revised COMFORT curriculum: Connect, Options, Making Meaning, Family caregivers, Openings, Relating, and Team communication. Based on a narrative approach to communication, which addresses communication skill development, this volume teaches nurses to consider a universal model of communication that aligns with the holistic nature of palliative care. This work moves beyond the traditional and singular view of the nurse as patient and family educator, to embrace highly complex communication challenges present in palliative care—namely, providing care and comfort through communication at a time when patients, families, and nurses themselves are suffering. In light of the vast changes in the palliative care landscape and the increasingly pivotal role of nurses in advancing those changes, this second edition provides an evidence-based approach to the practice of palliative nursing. This book integrates communication theory and health literacy constructs throughout, and provides clinical tools and teaching resources to help nurses enhance their own communication and create comfort for themselves, as well as for patients and their families.

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