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Health literacy is basic reading and numerical skills that allow a person to function in the health care environment. Even though most adults read at an eighth-grade level, and 20 percent of the population reads at or below a fifth-grade level, most health care materials are written at a 10th-grade level. Older patients are particularly affected because their reading and comprehension abilities are influenced by their cognition and their vision and hearing status. Inadequate health literacy can result in difficulty accessing health care, following instructions from a physician, and taking medication properly. Patients with inadequate health literacy are more likely to be hospitalized than patients with adequate skills. Patients understand medical information better when spoken to slowly, simple words are used, and a restricted amount of information is presented. For optimal comprehension and compliance, patient education material should be written at a sixth-grade or lower reading level, preferably including pictures and illustrations. All patients prefer reading medical information written in clear and concise language. Physicians should be alert to this problem because most patients are unwilling to admit that they have literacy problems. (Am Fam Physician 2005;72:463-8. Copyright© 2005 American Academy of Family Physicians.)

A film on OhioLINK. From the beginning of time, women have had the same thirst for knowledge as men, but were denied access to education. This program looks at the religious attitudes that support these age-old convictions, and examines what the world has lost by excluding women from the intellectual loop. Scriptural scholar Elaine Pagels tells about newly discovered documents suggesting that women were equal to men in early Christianity. Historian Ginette Paris looks at the powerful goddesses of the past who were shunted aside in favor of the submissive image of the Virgin Mary. A Bangladeshi writer faces a death decree for writing about Islam's oppression of women. At Wellesley College and the University of Norway, we visit programs devoted exclusively to women's studies. (47 minutes, color) (cc)

Nutbeam describes the importance of improving access to health information and the capacity to use it effectively as a public health goal. Because strategies include more personal forms of communication and community-based educational outreach, a reduction in low health literacy would be possible and the end goal would result in individuals being more involved in their health care decisions. This would empower them. Nutbeam makes a reasonable point for health literacy as a public health goal as a means for reducing low health literacy.