Health Literacy Month is a time for organizations and individuals to promote the importance of understandable health information. This annual, worldwide, awareness-raising event has been going strong ever since Helen Osborne founded it in 1999.

Health literacy refers to how well a person can get the health information and services that they need, and how well they understand them. It is also about using them to make good health decisions. It involves differences that people have in areas such as

• Access to information that they can understand
• Skills, such as finding that information, communicating with health care providers, living a healthy lifestyle, and managing a disease
• Knowledge of medical words, and of how their health care system works
• Abilities, such as physical or mental limitations
• Personal factors, such as age, education, language abilities, and culture

More than 90 million adults in the United States have low health literacy. It affects their ability to make health decisions. This can harm their health. They may have trouble managing chronic diseases, and leading a healthy lifestyle. They may go to the hospital more often, and have poorer health overall.

NIH: National Institutes of Health

The theme for Health Literacy Month is “Be a Health Literacy Hero.” It’s about taking action and finding ways to improve health communication. Health Literacy Heroes are individuals, teams, or organizations who not only identify health literacy problems but also act to solve them. You can help by recognizing and cheering on those you consider as  Health Literacy Heroes. For more information go to: https://medlineplus.gov/healthliteracy.html or http://www.healthliteracymonth.org/health-literacy-heroes/