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Celebrating Health Literacy Month – Part 1

October is Health Literacy month, when we take time to recognize the importance of both making the health care system easier to navigate, and ensuring that health information is easy to understand.

Health literacy is both personal and organizational:

Personal health literacy is the degree to which individuals have the ability to find, understand, and use information and services to inform their health-related decisions.¹

Organizational health literacy is the degree to which organizations equitably (and fairly) connect with and enable individuals to find, understand, and use information and services to inform individual health-related decisions.¹

This post takes a closer look at organizational health literacy and our role as Nova Scotia Health team members in helping to make our health system easier to navigate.

As Brach (2017) highlighted, “even the most skilled, well-intentioned clinician cannot single-handedly overcome the health literacy barriers people face”.² Indeed, change needs to happen across our health systems and throughout the organization at all levels.

What makes an organization health literate?

Research from the past two decades^{2, 3} has outlined that health literate organizations:

• Have leadership buy-in
• Prioritize health literacy within planning, evaluation, patient safety, and quality improvement efforts
• Provide health literacy supports and follow-up for employees
• Integrate patients and care partners in the design, implementation, and evaluation of health information and services
• Meet the needs of all individuals, including those with low literacy or other barriers
• Utilize health literacy strategies in all communications, particularly in high-risk scenarios (like ensuring informed consent or medication adherence)
• Provide easy access to health information, services, and navigation assistance
• Design and distribute print and digital content that is easy to find, understand, and use

What are the impacts of low organizational health literacy?

Research has shown that low organizational health literacy (organizations that do not follow the principles listed above) can have a negative impact not only on health outcomes, but on the entire health system, including:

• Increased patient frustration and stress⁴
• Decreased patient engagement^{3, 5}
• Decreased patient safety³
• Increased adverse outcomes⁶
• Increased use of health care services^{6, 7}
• Increased health care costs^{6, 7}

It is important that we work together to make real change for our patients and care partners. What can you do within your team to increase health literacy? To learn more about health literacy in health care, register for an upcoming Education and Training session or request a custom session for your colleagues or team.

Watch for Celebrating Health Literacy Month – Part 2 where we take a look at ways we can increase organizational health literacy within Nova Scotia Health. 

See all references

1. Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. (2024, October). Healthy People 2030: Health Literacy in Healthy People. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. https://health.gov/healthypeople/priority-areas/health-literacy-healthy-people-2030

2. Brach, C. (2017). The Journey to become a health literate organization: A snapshot of health system improvement. Studies in Health Technology and Informatics, 240, 203–237. https://doi.org/10.3233/978-1-61499-790-0-203

3. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. (2012). Ten attributes of health literate health care organizations. NAM Perspectives, 02(6). https://doi.org/10.31478/201206a

4. Yeh, J., & Ostini, R. (2020). The impact of health literacy environment on patient stress: A systematic review. BMC Public Health, 20(1), 749. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-020-08649-x

5. Koh, H. K., Brach, C., Harris, L. M., & Parchman, M. L. (2013). A Proposed ‘Health Literate Care Model’ Would Constitute A Systems Approach To Improving Patients’ Engagement In Care. Health Affairs (Project Hope), 32(2), 357–367. https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2012.1205

6. Lloyd, J. E., Song, H. J., Dennis, S. M., Dunbar, N., Harris, E., & Harris, M. F. (2018). A paucity of strategies for developing health literate organisations: A systematic review. PloS One, 13(4), e0195018. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0195018

7. Farmanova, E., Bonneville, L., & Bouchard, L. (2018). Organizational Health Literacy: Review of Theories, Frameworks, Guides, and Implementation Issues. Inquiry : a journal of medical care organization, provision and financing, 55, 46958018757848. https://doi.org/10.1177/0046958018757848

8. Santana, S., Brach, C., Harris, L., Ochiai, E., Blakey, C., Bevington, F., Kleinman, D., & Pronk, N. (2021). Updating Health Literacy for Healthy People 2030: Defining its importance for a new decade in public health. Journal of Public Health Management and Practice, 27(Supplement 6), S258. https://doi.org/10.1097/PHH.0000000000001324

Kallen Rutledge

Librarian Educator, Patient Education Pamphlets Lead
Nova Scotia Hospital, Central Zone

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