Health literacy can be defined as people’s competencies to access, understand, appraise and apply information to make health decisions in everyday life. It helps individuals make healthy choices in times where the boundaries between work and life aren’t so clear anymore.
When people fall ill, they seek the best treatments possible. But, how could they know about those treatments if they aren’t provided with easy-to-understand information in the first place? Pharmaceutical firms develop countless drugs and devices to assist people in managing their condition, but only on a few occasions are advertisements presented in a way that educates the patient. By spending more time in ensuring that all their communications are clear to people of any education level, pharmaceutical firms can improve health literacy.
Challenges Faced With Health Literacy
According to the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (Health Communication Activities), over a third of US adults-77 million people-would have difficulty with common health tasks, such as following directions on a prescription drug label or adhering to a childhood immunization schedule using a standard chart.1
A report presented by the Institute of Medicine suggests that 90 million people, nearly half of the adult US population, lacks health literacy skills needed to understand and act on health information and health system demands.2 Healthcare advertising has a long way to go before patients can find it easier to relate and understand the information they’re receiving from these www cbd boss us.
The current methods being used to market to people with health conditions is making patient education fall by the wayside. People find actors and models less relatable when compared with real patients. If patients lack the health literacy that is needed to understand the ads, the information provided could mislead them or be misunderstood.
“ONLY 12 % of Adults have proficient health literacy“
The US Department of Health and Human Services reported that only 12 percent of adults have proficient health literacy.3 Poor patient education could lead to poor management of chronic ailments and even cause setbacks. People may skip their much-required appointments or tests, lack the ability to manage conditions, get hospitalized often and face increased health care costs. If patients aren’t aware of the questions they should ask about their medicines, in essence of how the medicine would act or react, they could experience negative outcomes.