Health Literacy Initiative

Research has connected poor health literacy – the ability of individuals to understand basic health information and make appropriate decisions – to poor health outcomes and increased costs for healthcare. Nationally, poor health literacy costs an estimated $106 to $238 billion a year.

While little information has been gathered on Kentucky, all indicators point to poor health literacy: Kentuckians make poor health choices, they suffer from high levels of chronic disease and disability and they have low levels of prose literacy.

The College of Communications and Information Studies launched a Health Literacy Initiative to begin addressing this issue. The initiative focuses on four core area:

Asset Mapping: Identify and map the assets Kentucky has that are working to improve health literacy.

Network Development: Build a network of scholars, practitioners, NGOs, faith-base groups and policy makers to address health literacy.

Engaged Research:  Conduct research to identify ways to improve health literacy and, as a result, health outcomes.

Capacity Building: Build the capacity of the assets Kentucky has, identify and fill in gaps where they exists.

As part of a graduate seminar course, the college will hold ten public meetings to bring together stakeholders and experts. The meetings will be taped for various uses, including podcasts, educational programming and content analysis.