Fall 2022 Health Equity Highlight

October is Health Literacy Month

Health literacy aims to enable individuals to find, understand and use information and services to inform health-related decisions and actions for themselves and others. Individuals with limited health literacy are at an increased risk of misunderstanding information that is important to achieving and maintaining health or losing their way in the fragmented healthcare system. This can lead to barriers to accessing healthcare services. Failure to address health literacy, among other cultural and linguistic factors, can result in compromised patient safety and adverse events including diagnostic errors, missed screenings and inappropriate care transitions. 

The Coverage to Care initiative includes multiples resources in a variety of languages designed to help people understand their health coverage and connect to primary care and the preventive services that are right for them.