Health literacy plays a crucial role in influencing various aspects of patient outcomes and healthcare. Here are some key points based on the provided search results:
1. Impact on Health Status and Costs:
Limited health literacy affects many types of health conditions, diseases, situations, and outcomes, including health status and costs. Improving health literacy could prevent nearly 1 million hospital visits and save over $25 billion a year
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2. Relationship with Poor Health:
Inadequate health literacy is recognized as a stronger predictor of poor health than age, income, employment status, education level, or race. Individuals with inadequate health literacy often have difficulty understanding prescription labels, participating in medical decisions, following medical recommendations, and attending their follow-up appointments. They may also struggle with poor self-care behaviors, receive fewer preventive measures, and have increased all-cause mortality
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3. Impact on Health-Related Quality of Life:
Limited evidence exists regarding the relationship between health literacy and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in Australian patients. However, it has been found that health literacy deficits affect a significant portion of the population, especially the elderly, and can make it difficult for patients to function effectively in the healthcare system
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4. Effects on Disease Self-Management and Health Behaviors:
Low health literacy negatively impacts disease self-management and individual health behaviors such as adherence with weight control and tobacco cessation interventions and cancer screening recommendations. Individuals with low health literacy are more likely to present with advanced illness, resulting in delayed diagnosis and treatment and poorer outcomes
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5. Patient Engagement and Communication:
Patients with low health literacy are at risk of not being as engaged in their care, which has implications for the quality of care that is delivered. Clear communication is of utmost importance, especially in environments that expect a high level of patient participation
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6. Health Disparities and Equity:
There is a strong correlation between health literacy and health disparities. Enhancing the level of health literacy in the population or making health services more accessible to people with low health literacy may offer the means to achieve greater equity in disease outcomes
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7. Provider Implications and Quality of Life:
When patients, providers, and communities work together to understand and improve health literacy, a greater quality of life will result. Health literacy is essential for patients to be able to take control and manage their own health
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8. Desire for Participation in Healthcare and Medical Visit Communication:
Low literacy patients may have different perspectives on participating in their healthcare, and it is important to develop effective interventions to improve the interpersonal care that these patients receive and to reduce the negative impact that low literacy has on patient outcomes
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