October is Health Literacy Month, and so I thought we’d talk a little bit about what that is and what it means. There are two types of health literacy: personal literacy and organizational literacy. We’re going to talk about personal health literacy today. According to the World Health Organization, “Health literacy means being able to access, understand, appraise and use information and services in ways that promote and maintain good health and well-being.”
How You Can This for Yourself
Being apprised of the best health advice for your situation is invaluable as we get older. Try not to go into information overload, and please be careful around medical misinformation. But it can be very good to stay abrest of new research and guidelines.
Helping Your Community
Having someone knowledgeable about prevention and risk factors can be so important in early detection and screening. Volunteer for early detection and prevention drives in your community.
I will be doing another post about medical misinformation later today, so stay tuned for that!
Written by Brigid Coffey
