Health Literacy: Definition, Types, and Strategies to Improve

Abstract

Health literacy is the skill to comprehend health information and knowledge. There are three types of health literacy, which is functional health literacy (FHL), interactive health literacy (IHL), and critical health literacy (CHL). Levels of health literacy can determine a person's health status. Low health literacy is associated with poor health outcomes and inefficient utilization of medical resources. Maintaining adequate health literacy is crucial in making better public health. Both medical personnel and patients need several interventions to maintain good levels of health literacy. Various strategies have been implemented in the community to improve levels of health literacy. Finding the main cause of low health literacy in the community has to be done before executing health literacy improvement plans to make it effective.