HEALTH LITERACY:
Improve Your Health and Happiness

Do you leave the doctor’s office feeling confused? The answer could impact your health and, it turns out, your happiness.

The ability to understand health information and use it to make decisions about your personal health is called health literacy. A recent study published in the journal Social Indicators Research found that adults who were confident in their ability to read and answer questions on medical forms without assistance were happier than those with lower levels of literacy. Researchers believe this is because people with greater health literacy feel more in control.

Approximately one-third of U.S. adults have limited health literacy. This may interfere with their ability to:

• Share their health history with their doctor
• Understand how to take medications properly
• Manage a chronic condition

Improving your health literacy could result in better health, lower rates of hospitalization, and greater use of preventive services, such as mammograms and flu shots.

The best way to improve your health literacy is to ask questions. At your next doctor’s visit, ask:

• What is my main problem?
• What do I need to do?
• Why is it important for me to do this?