Health Literacy 2030: Is It Time to Redefine the Term?

Abstract

For decades, health literacy has been used to describe the ability of individuals to locate, interpret, and apply health information to their decisions. The US Department of Health and Human Services has now proposed redefining the term to emphasize the role of society in providing accessible, comprehensible information. This redefinition would reflect a welcome shift to encompass the roles of those who communicate information, not simply those who seek it. However, redefining an accepted term would have serious negative effects on the indexing of the research literature and create difficulties interpreting studies conducted under the previous definition. Therefore, we strongly caution against redefining the accepted term. Instead, we propose introducing a new term-health information fluency-defined as universal effective use of health information. The old term can continue to be used to describe the set of concerns about individual skills, but by promoting the new term, the Department of Health and Human Services can encourage research into creating accurate, accessible health information that people can easily find, understand, and use to inform their decisions.

Factors Associated with Knowledge and Awareness of Stroke Among the Jordanian Population: A Cross-Sectional Study

“…Public health literacy is a strong asset for a healthier community. As of August 2020, The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released Healthy People 2030, introducing an updated definition of personal health literacy as “the degree to which individuals can find, understand, and use information and services to inform health-related decisions and actions for themselves and others,” while organizational health literacy describes the degree to which organizations equitably enable individuals to pursue personal health literacy ( Services, 2020 , Ancker et al, 2020 ). This study describes the levels of knowledge and awareness related to stroke among individuals from the general Jordanian population.…”

International Perspective on Health Literacy and Health Equity: Factors That Influence the Former Soviet Union Immigrants

“…Society plays a role in the availability of accessible and understandable health information [143]. Thus, societies must take a proactive approach to designing immigrant-friendly healthcare systems defined as "health systems that consciously and systematically incorporate the needs of migrants into health financing, policy, planning, implementation, and evaluation, including such considerations as the epidemiological profiles of migrant populations, relevant cultural, language and socioeconomic factors and the impact of the migration process on the health of migrants" [38] (p. 133).…”

Communicative and Discursive Perspectives on the Medication Experience

“…So many factors are at work, many involving language and discourse. DHSS Healthy People 2030 has now proposed changing the meaning of ‘health literacy’ to emphasize society’s role in providing the information: “Health literacy occurs when a society provides accurate health information and services that people can easily find, understand, and use to inform their decisions and actions” [ 138 , 139 ]. That should be ‘the system’, not ‘society’; family, friends and fellow patients can hardly be held responsible.…”