Teaching health care professionals about health literacy: a review of the literature

Abstract

Low health literacy is a common and serious issue in U.S. health care. Health care professionals lack adequate training in health literacy principles. Increasing and improving health literacy training for the health care workforce is needed. Health professions educators have responded to this need by developing health literacy curricula, which use a wide variety of didactic and experiential teaching techniques and tools. This article reviews the literature on teaching health literacy principles to health professionals and presents a menu of teaching options for health professions educators.