Health Literacy Best Practices 

What Are Some Health Literacy Best Practices?  

Health literacy best practices are interventions, programs, and strategies proven to increase patient understanding of health information by improving the way that health information is provided. 

Best Practices

Plain Language

Plain language is language which the average adult can understand the first time they see or hear it. Using plain language means avoiding medical terminology, challenging words, acronyms, and jargon. Research shows that writing and speaking at a 5th or 6th grade reading level will allow most adults to understand and use the information you provide.

Teach-Back Method

The Teach-Back Method is one technique that providers can use to ensure they accurately and sufficiently explain information in ways their patient can understand and use. This practice involves asking your patient to teach the information back to you, so you can assess if you need to re-explain in a different way. Re-teach the information, as necessary, while using different words, analogies, and educational strategies

Shared Decision-Making

Shared Decision-Making is one method healthcare providers can use when making decisions with patients about their health, including treatment plans, medications, and lifestyle changes. It requires that a healthcare provider and their patient work together to make a decision that is best for the patient, prioritizing the patient’s needs. Those needs can include culturally important aspects of their life.

Some ways you can initiate the shared decision-making practice include:

•     Seeking patient participation

•    Helping your patient explore and compare treatment options

•    Assessing your patient’s values and preferences

•    Reaching a decision with your patient

•    And evaluating your patient’s decision  

Creating a Shame-Free Environment

As healthcare and public health professionals, we should always strive to create a welcoming, shame-free environment for our patients and clients. How we choose to engage with our patients can go a long way in building trust, empowering patients, and increasing both individual and organizational health literacy.

To create a welcoming, shame-free environment you can: 

1.    First evaluate the current environment. Start by becoming aware of any issues and committing to make any needed changes.

2.    Use clear and easy-to-understand signs throughout the healthcare space.

3.    Always encourage questions. Patients often have questions, and you should encourage them to ask about anything that is unclear or sparks curiosity. When encouraging questions, try to use open-ended phrases.

Creating a Feedback Loop

Creating a feedback loop is a method of engaging the intended users of a service or program in a way that is meaningful and provides helpful feedback. It is one way to include your patient in the planning, design, implementation, and evaluation of your project, presentation, materials, and more.  

We should always look to our community members to guide the creation, revision, and evaluation of our services. Community knows community best.

After recruiting members of the community and defining the problem together, here are a few steps to take: 

1.    Engage community members using their preferred method of communication 

2.    Set expectations for commitment, partnership, roles, accountability, and responsibility 

3.    Get to know your community members by meeting them where they are 

4.    Work with the community to determine what improvements need to be made 

5.    Modify project, presentation, or intervention considering community feedback 

6.    Review new changes with the community and finalize 

7.    Implement the project, presentation, or intervention 

8.    Continually evaluate with the community  

9.    Prepare for challenges and commit to working through them together 

Health Literacy Universal Precautions

Health literacy universal precautions are steps that encompass many health literacy best practices, which assume all patients will experience limited health literacy. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) created a toolkit, which is a great reference for improving spoken and written communication, self-management, patient empowerment, and patient support systems.

For more information, please refer to the AHRQ’s Health Literacy Universal Precautions Toolkit.