Health Literacy

The degree to which individuals can obtain, process, understand, and act on health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions. In the digital context, health literacy extends to the ability to seek, find, understand, and appraise health information from electronic sources and apply the knowledge to address health concerns. Low health literacy disproportionately affects older adults, people with lower education levels, and people with disabilities, creating barriers to accessing online health resources. Designing health information for low health literacy requires plain language, lower reading levels, personalized content, visual aids, and addressing psychological barriers like fear and stigma that prevent help-seeking behavior.