Health literacy, according to the Institute of Medicine, is defined as "the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions." Nearly half of all American adults, 90 million people, have difficulty understanding and acting upon health information (Institute of Medicine: A Prescription to End Confusion). Many of these people include recent immigrants, non-English speaking adults, the poor, and the elderly.
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Medication Labeling
The Medication Labeling Project was begun in 2004 to examine medication labels through the lens of health literacy. The initiative was recommended by the Foundation’s Patient Literacy Advisory Board and from the Patient Awareness and Education breakout session of the 2004 ACP Foundation/IOM Annual Health Literacy Conference.
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Patient Materials
Easy to understand tools that show you what you need to do to manage your health.
Find out more about Patient Materials in the Materials and Guides section
Conferences
Executive summaries and presentations from the ACP Foundation's national health communication conference.
Find out more about our upcoming conferences and our past conferences here
Information Rx
A collaboration with the National Library of Medicine to give physicians tools to refer patients to accurate and trustworthy health information on the internet.
To find out more about the Information Rx initiative, click here
Health Literacy Awards for ACP Chapters
To find out more bout the Health Literacy Awards, click here