Health Literacy

Health literacy is about people having enough knowledge, understanding, skills and confidence to use health information, to be active partners in their care, and to navigate health and social care systems. Therefore, to access, assess and apply health information, people need to be health literate. The health literacy levels in England are very low: 43% of 16 to 65-year-olds struggle with text-based health information; and 61% of 16 to 65-year-olds cannot understand health information that includes both text and numbers (Rowlands et al., 2015. View article).

People working in health and social care need to be aware of health literacy and of the techniques that can help to increase understanding.

Promoting health literacy is everyone’s responsibility. NHS Education for Scotland (NES) and Health Education England (HEE) have collaborated to develop a new e-learning module to help you understand the role health literacy plays in making sure everyone has enough knowledge, understanding, skills and confidence to use health information, to be active partners in their care, and to navigate health and social care systems.

You can book a session with a librarian with your team. Fill and submit the form here.

Tutorials and guides

Health Literacy – e-Learning for Healthcare (e-lfh.org.uk)

Health Literacy toolkit

Page last reviewed: 27 January, 2024