Program Areas

Health and Science Literacy

Health and science literacy is the basic understanding of fundamental science terms and ideas and the ability to apply basic analytic skills in everyday life to make informed personal decisions. As the amount of information on health and science grows in society, so does the need for tools, strategies, and methods to ensure that people of all cultural and educational backgrounds understand and act on information to protect their health and well-being.

Health and science literacy, however, is relatively low in the United States, creating a two-fold public problem. First, low health and science literacy correlates strongly with negative health outcomes. Indeed, it is a stronger predictor of poor health than age, income, employment status, education level, and other demographic characteristics. Second, poor health and science literacy substantially and adversely impact the U.S. economy through lost productivity.

Low health and science literacy can be addressed through materials development and skill building. Materials development involves the creation and dissemination of consumer-center health education interventions that provide specifically-tailored information to target audiences. Skills-building focuses on increasing health and science literacy by teaching people methods to analyze and apply health and science information in their personal lives.

The KDHRC program on Health and Science Literacy works at the intersection of these two approaches by developing and evaluating creative strategies to provide health information in engaging ways while developing people’s skills to understand and apply that information to their own health care decisions.