October 16, 2024

Assess Health Literacy in Your Organization

Conduct an assessment to see what opportunities or barriers are present to address health literacy issues in your organization. Make sure to engage multiple partners and review the tools and resources below to get started.

Overview

Your organization can't address its health literacy issues if it doesn't know its current situation. It's easy to make assumptions, but you need data. Do an honest assessment to identify opportunities and barriers to make progress on health literacy.

As you conduct your assessment, engage multiple interested parties, and choose from these tools to help you get started.

Public health organizations and their partners, as well as clinical care groups, may find the following resources to be helpful. There's still a need to help organizations address health literacy issues for the people they serve.

General assessment tools

HLE 2 The Health Literacy Environment of Hospitals and Health Centers: An Updated Assessment Tool for Identifying Facilitating Factors and Barriers to Information, Care, and Services [923 KB, 47 pages] (Harvard School of Public Health, 2019)
Building Health Literate Organizations: A Guidebook to Achieving Organizational Change (Unity Point Health, 2014)
AHRQ Health Literacy Universal Precautions Toolkit (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2010)
The Health Literacy Environment Activity Packet: First Impressions & Walking Interview [142 KB, 21 pages] (Harvard School of Public Health, 2010)
Pharmacy Health Literacy Assessment Tool (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2007)

Train the workforce

Our Find Training page has training opportunities in health literacy, plain language, and culture and communication.

See Also: Find Training

Develop materials that are easy to understand and act on

CDC Clear Communication Index (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2014)
Federal Plain Language Guidelines (The Plain Language Action and Information Network, 2011)
Simply Put: A guide for creating easy-to-understand materials [1.9 MB, 44 pages] (CDC 2009)

See Also: Develop & Test Materials

Meet the needs of audiences with a range of health literacy skills

AHRQ Health Literacy Universal Precautions Toolkit (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality 2010)
Questions Are the Answer (Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality 2009)
National Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS) Standards (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health) can help organizations address the cultural and language differences between the people who provide information and services and the people they serve.

Provide easy access to health information and services

See the resources below for information about accessible and usable health information, including websites.

NIH National Library of Medicine Evidence-based Practice and Health Technology Assessment Links to Resources(National Institutes of Health National Library of Medicine 2011)
Accessible Health Information Technology (IT) for Populations with Limited Literacy: A Guide for Developers and Purchasers of Health IT [369 KB, 21 pages](Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality National Resource Center for Health IT 2007)
Improving the User Experience (U.S. General Services Administration, Technology Transformation Services)

See the resources below for information on how to improve the readability of consent forms and other print materials for participants in health care research.