Consumer Health

Health literacy includes all of the skills you use to manage your health and navigate the healthcare system. It also includes the steps that organizations take to make health information and services accessible to you. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services provide two definitions of health literacy:

1. Personal health literacy is the degree to which individuals have the ability to find, understand, and use information and services to inform health-related decisions and actions for themselves and others.
2. Organizational health literacy is the degree to which organizations equitably enable individuals to find, understand, and use information and services to inform health-related decisions and actions for themselves and others.

You can learn more about health literacy and why it is important through MedlinePlus here. 

The National Library of Medicine provides a tutorial to help you better understand the medical words your doctor may use.
Complete the tutorial online here or download the PDF below. 

Find easy to understand definitions of common health insurance enrollment terms here. This glossary is also available in Spanish and Haitian Creole.