Health literacy is not simply a phrase, it is exactly what medical illustrators have to be good at. According to the World Health Organization health literacy ‘represents the cognitive and social skills which determine the motivation and ability of individuals to gain access to, understand and use information in ways which promote and maintain good health’. It is not only the ability to read: it is a matter of reading, listening, analysis, judgement, and of decision‐making, in health‐care situations.
The United States and Canada, where the most relevant research has been undertaken, seem to have embraced health literacy and its social implications. However, a report by the National Consumer Council (NCC) in 2004 suggests that ‘there does not appear to be much direct research into the effects of health literacy in the UK’.Footnote1
As far back as 1999, one report concluded that 20% of all adults in the UK have severe problems with basic literacy and numeracy skills; even more to the point, these are problems whose severity is directly proportionate to health, to age, to language‐use and to IT literacy.Footnote2 Likewise, however invaluable the Internet has been in allowing patients access to health‐care information, it has also created a gap between those who are able and those who are not. Those with the greatest need for medical information are often those least likely to have access to new technology. In other words, health literacy is actually a hardship for many of the people we work with everyday. It hardly needs restating that people generally underestimate their need for help, not least because none of us like to admit that we are needy in any way; it remains a principal challenge for health‐care professionals to communicate health‐care information to patients in ways that make sense and are genuinely helpful.
Simon Fradd, of the Developing Patient Partnerships group, argues that ‘the NHS has a clear role in ensuring that people are equipped with the right information, at the right time, and in the right format, so everyone can benefit from health services and good health’.Footnote3 The NCC Report also lists recommendations, which our profession should actively support:
standards and measures of quality for health literacy, which should help to make health literacy an integral part of health‐care.
research by health‐care professionals to understand better the challenges of health literacy throughout the health‐care system.
user‐friendly information available in plain‐spoken language, developed in co‐operation with education providers.
But whose challenge is health literacy? No one group within the National Health Service is solely responsible, but medical illustrators, as an ordinary part of our jobs, are responsible for the material that matters. Most often we are the ones who design the glossy leaflets and posters, and provide the illustrations and photographs. So should we be doing more? Is it enough simply to churn out tens of thousands of leaflets each year, if they may be of no use to one in five people in the UK? Or are such niceties somebody else’s business?
Notes
National Consumer Council. Health Literacy: being able to make the most of health. 2004. www.ncc.org.uk/health Accessed September 2004.
The Moser Report 1999. www.lifelonglearning.co.uk/mosergroup Accessed July 2005.
BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/‐/1/hi/health/3530874.stm Accessed July 2005.