I have published previous notes about health literacy and expanded the topic to include lab literacy (see: Better Definition for Health Literacy). This general topic interests me, partly because one of the strongest correlates for good health is the number of years of formal education independent of income or race. One very interesting theory to explain this observation is that a person invests in himself or herself by pursuing advanced degrees and foregoing years of income by doing so. These more educated people then seek to "protect" this investment by greater attention to a healthy lifestyle as they age.
I recently came across an article that discusses the idea that a greater chance of death correlates with low health literacy (see: Low 'health literacy' increases patients' chance of death). Below is an excerpt from the article with boldface emphasis mine:
Internist David Baker calls it the "Aha! moment," that moment when it finally clicks for patients. They get what their doctor or nurse has been trying to explain....But many patients never get it, Baker writes in a report...and they pay with their lives. People with inadequate health literacy, defined as an inability to read and understand basic health-related materials such as prescription bottles and appointment slips, are more likely to die, Baker and his co-authors write in the Archives of Internal Medicine....Participants completed a face-to-face home interview in 1997. Interviewers collected information about race and ethnicity, education, income, weight, chronic medical conditions and health-related behaviors such as smoking and exercise. Participants also took a test that assessed their ability to understand hospital forms and prescription labels. In 2003, the researchers identified 815 participants who had died since their interviews. After taking into account other potential factors, such as participants' health when they entered the study, the researchers found that those with inadequate health literacy were 52% more likely to have died than those with adequate health literacy....Years of schooling was only weakly associated with mortality, the authors write, suggesting that some people who graduated high school never learned to read well, while others with less schooling became better readers over time.
I believe that "lab literacy" is an important component of overall "health literacy." The reason for this is that patients gravitate to, and focus on, their lab test results as a means for assessing their health status and their response to drug therapy. Recall how common it is for friends with at least an average "health IQ" to easily recall their levels of "good" cholesterol and "bad" cholesterol?
The results of the study cited above will probably surprise no one. What needs to be sorted out, however, are those patients who don't read well and therefore don't take good care of themselves and those who don't read well but also don't particularly care about their health. The former group may be more amenable to interventions and support for their health literacy problem.
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