Study: Low health literacy takes financial toll on state

Fifteen percent of Connecticut residents have low health literacy, and it is costing the state more than six billion dollars a year in additional health care expenses, according to a new report by the University's graduate program in public health.

Health literacy refers to a person's ability to acquire, understand, and use health information and services in order to make appropriate health decisions.

Details of the report and recommendations on how to improve the state's health literacy were released during a recent forum at the Legislative Office Building in Hartford.

"People with low health literacy face greater risk of unnecessary illness, disability, and even death," says Christine Torres, a graduate student in public health, one of 17 students who worked on the report.

Low health literacy can cause people to make errors in using medication or following self-care instructions.

Caregivers may falsely presume an individual is non-compliant with treatment recommendations when, in fact, poor health literacy is the underlying problem.

"One in five people reads at or below a fifth-grade level," says graduate student Kimberly Lewendon.

"Most health care materials are written for someone who reads at a tenth-grade level, suggesting that much of the health care material given to patients is written at a level too advanced for them to fully understand."

Since people often don't question what they don't understand, health providers may believe the health literacy of their patients is higher than it actually is, she adds.

The consequences for the community are also substantial.

Because of low health literacy, conditions that could have been prevented or treated at an early stage often require complicated, extended care at higher cost, placing an additional burden on an already overburdened health care system.