Challenges and Implications of Health Literacy in Global Health Care

This chapter explains the perspectives on health literacy, trends and issues with health literacy, and the challenges and implications of health literacy in global healthcare. Health literacy concerns the knowledge and competences of patient to meet the complex demands of health in modern healthcare. Providing effective patient information means acknowledging, understanding, and overcoming barriers to health literacy that physicians, health professionals, and patients might experience. Health literacy affects health behavior and the use of health services, thus affecting health outcomes and health costs in the healthcare organizations. The benefits of health literacy improvement include improved communication, greater adherence to treatment, greater ability to engage in self-care, improved health status, greater healthcare efficiency, and cost savings to the healthcare systems.