ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses health literacy and competencies that people need to have in order to interact with consumer health information and consumer health information technology. Health literacy affects care access and utilization because limited health literacy creates personal and systemic barriers to obtaining care. On a personal level, individuals with lower health literacy are less likely to understand prevention and recognize early symptoms of disease. The structure of the presentation roughly follows Norman and Skinner’s e-health literacy model, without subscribing to the model’s representation of the relationships between various competencies. The field of health literacy grew out of the concern of the mismatch between the public’s reading competency and complexity of typical patient education materials, instruction, and other health-related content. Cognitive psychology, public health communication, and informatics make numerous research-based recommendations for making information easier to comprehend. Definitions of health literacy usually combine numeracy with traditional literacy without delving into greater depth.
