Health Literacy: A Crucial Issue

This image displays the exact thoughts of many people in the United States, not only recent immigrants, but those who come from low socioeconomic backgrounds. This face is the face many have when it comes to going to the doctor or even hearing information on how to take care of their own health. Like the copy states "Just WHAT did the doctor order?", many really don't understand what they have to do to take care of themselves.

Health Literacy is something that us as Public Health professionals really need to focus on. We sometimes forget that not everyone understands our jargon and that we really need to make sure that the public understands the message we are trying to get across. We need to make sure that we understand their background and learn the best way to make sure the message is understood and implemented. With 90 million American Adults with limited reading and math skills, our goal is to make sure this population are able to understand their medication and what the doctor tells them so they don't go home and treat themselves incorrectly. As we work to make health materials to send out to the public, we need to make sure we use such tools as SMOG to make sure we are not writing way above our public's reading level. Making sure that we tailor all our materials is key, if not we'll end up with people like the gentleman in the image, confused and lost. Therefore, I challenge everyone that once you dive into the work force and begin to create health materials remember the 90 million individuals and make sure that you tailor and reach your target audience, so that we can bring an end to health literacy.