Poster Presentations (Group II)

Health Literacy is a person’s ability to read, understand, and act on health information to make appropriate health decisions.  Health Literacy is the best predictor of health status, regardless of race, socioeconomic, and education, according to the American Medical Association.  The Joint Commission considers health literacy to be the foundation for patient safety, empowerment and quality health care.  LEP and culturally diverse patients especially struggle with health literacy issues impacting all aspects of health care - access, navigation, decision making, preventive care, disease management, medication adherence, utilization of insurance, and so on.  For example, 41% of Hispanic adult participants fell into below basic health literacy levels as measured by the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy.

The Minnesota Health Literacy Partnership, a program of the Minnesota Literacy Council formed to improve the health of all Minnesotans by promoting health literacy.  Our goals focus on educating the provider community, empowering consumers of health care and sharing health literacy resources.  The Partnership is a unique collaboration between health care organizations, literacy groups, community programs, and health care consumers.   The Partnership represents 20 organizations who are uniting to call attention to the challenge of low health literacy and addressing it in a coordinated and cost-effective fashion.