| Seq #101 | Friday, 14 March 2003 | |||||||
| 8:00 AM-8:45 AM Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center Ballroom C1, Plenary Session | ||||||||
| Functional Literacy and Implications for Oral Health | ||||||||
| * Poster files available online | ||||||||
Sponsored by: Behavioral Sciences | ||||||||
| Description: Modern society and its institutions rely on the written word. However, findings from national and international studies of adults’ functional literacy skills indicate that the average adult does not quite have the literacy skills required for tasks needed in the workplace and for full participation in the activities of everyday civic life. These findings challenge our assumptions about the skills of the average adult and are forcing us to re-calibrate the norm. Literacy serves as a social determinate of health when the lack of literacy skills and/or the demand for higher than average literacy skills serve as access barriers. Furthermore, a mismatch between skills of the average person and the literacy related demands of services presents a violation of basic communication principles. Researchers are starting to document and understand literacy related barriers to preventive services and to health care. Indeed, national work groups at NIH and CDC are now considering the role of literacy in health disparities and improved health literacy is now one of the objectives of Healthy People 2010. A small number of recent studies have begun to document the association between literacy skills and health outcomes. In addition, hundreds of studies focused on assessment of health materials and published in medical and public health journals indicate that the reading level of most health materials exceed the reading ability of the people for whom they were designed. However, few examinations have focused on literacy as a barrier to care and follow-up and fewer still on implications for oral health. Dr. Rudd provides an explanation of functional literacy skills and an overview of research to date. She focuses on oral health concerns and documents some of the existing barriers to offer suggestions for practice and for the development of a research agenda in oral health literacy | ||||||||
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Back to the 32nd Annual Meeting and Exhibition of the AADR (March 12-15, 2003)