Health literacy is the ability to understand health information and to use that information to make good decisions about your health and medical care. Health information can overwhelm even people with advanced literacy skills. About one third of the adult population in the United States has limited health literacy.
The Literacy Council of Wood County developed a health literacy curriculum for tutors to use with learners. Many times our learners ask about where to find health care in the community or how to get health insurance. Sometimes learners also bring in health-related questions. While our staff and volunteers never offer medical advice, we do help our learners connect to the resources in the community that can help them meet their medical and health needs.
Because health and health care is a topic of interest for many people, many literacy programs integrate health literacy into basic adult education programs and English language services.
Integrating health information into our programs is a great way to help learners learn and practice new literacy skills, including:
| Reading |
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| Document Use |
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| Numeracy |
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| Writing |
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| Oral Communication |
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| Working with Others |
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| Thinking Skills |
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| Computer Use |
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| Continuous Learning |
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