Limited health literacy is a health hazard.
Literacy skills are the strongest predictor of an individual's health status - more than age, income, education level, employment status or racial or ethnic group. An estimated 36 percent of Americans have poor health literacy skills and cannot use a graph to determine a healthy weight range, or read labels to identify substances that interact with over-the-counter medications. Multiple state and national studies link higher health care costs to low literacy skills. Between $106 and $238 billion is lost each year on health care costs due to a problem with communication methods and the ability of adults to obtain, process and understand health information. Providers in Wisconsin lose $3.4 billion annually due to health literacy problems. In Dane County alone, lack of health literacy costs the health care system more than $433 million.

Students practice English with real nurses and pharmacists!

Literacy Network leads the way in Health Literacy in Dane County
Literacy Network was awarded an incentive by the State of Wisconsin Department of Health Services to provide a program summary about our efforts to improve health literacy. The project is funded by the Wisconsin Partnership Program at the UW-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health.

We offered a health literacy class from fall/winter 2009/2010 at St. Mary's Hospital, which. We thank St. Mary's for helping to support this vital program. The class will focus on the following skills for English language learners:

• Speak, read and write in English
• Talk to a doctor
• Talk about your symptoms (how you feel)
• Understand blood pressure
• Read medicine labels
• Fill out forms
• Understand hospitals and clinics in Madison
• Use the Emergency Room and Urgent Care

9 Week Health Literacy Class
Another class will begin in April 2010. This class is intended for high beginning to low intermediate ESL students. We work from the text Staying Healthy, created by the Florida Literacy Coalition. In conjunction with the text, students will complete a pre and post test. Working with various health organizations in the community, we will aim to provide students with hands-on practice that will improve their English language ability, knowledge of good health practices and their ability to make and communicate good decisions regarding their health care.

Initially, we will study health care in general. This will include an introduction to area health care facilities, the importance of regular checkups, when and how to use emergency care and how to navigate health care facilities and read signs. Next, we will cover how to communicate with the doctor, going over body parts, filling in basic forms, answering and asking questions and describing symptoms. We will immediately continue on to a section on medicine and the importance of reading labels carefully. The culmination of these three sections will be a mock clinic, in which students will fill out a basic new patient form, have their blood pressure taken and then practice describing assigned symptoms to area doctors and nurses. UW Pharmacy students will review sample prescriptions with the students. We will end the class with a section on nutrition and taking care of your body. We plan to invite area healthcare professionals to speak to our class, as a supplement to the text. As a final project, students will create a brochure on how to stay healthy. The brochure will be handed out to other ESL students in the area, thus empowering our students to teach others in their communities.

Spring 2010 Health Literacy Class
This class will be offered again starting in April. If you are interested in attending a Health Literacy Class in the future, please call Literacy Network at 244-3911.