8.2 How is Health Literacy Measured Flashcards
National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL)
- Used to assess health literacy
- Involves Prose, Document, and Quantitative Scales
Prose Tasks
- Knowledge/Skills to preform prose tasks
- Ability to use information from text such as news, stories, brochures, and instructional material
Document Tasks
- Job applications, payroll forms, transportation schedules, maps, tablets.
Quantitative Scales
- Ability to identify and preform computations
- Balancing a checkbook, maintaining a budget
TASKS OF HEALTH LITERACY MEASUREMENT
Clinical domain - Filling out a patient form or reading a prescription bottle
Prevention domain - Ability to understand written material of health risks of obesity
Navigation domain - Ability to navigate healthcare and understanding of what insurance will pay for.
4 Levels of Prose Literacy
Below Basic
- Find 1 piece of information
- Example is the date on a medical appointment slip that is shorter and simpler than the text
Basic
- Ability to provide 2 reasons why a person with no symptoms to a disease should be tested for that disease by using information in a pamphlet
Intermediate
- Interpret and apply information presented in complex graphs, tablets, or other health related texts or documents
Proficient
- Drawing abstract inferences, comparing multiple pieces of information within complex texts or documents
- Applying abstract or complicated information
What the Levels Mean
- Basic/Below - Less likely to get information from written sources and more likely to get information from radio and television than higher literacy levels.
Limitations of NAAL Assessment
- Does not capture full range of skills needed for health literacy
CANNOT DIFFERENTIATE - Reading ability
- Lack of health-related background knowledge
- Lack of familiarity with language and materials
- Cultural differences in approaches to health
TOFHLA
- Test of Functional Health Literacy
- Gold Standard
Other health literacy assessments-
- Rapid Estimate of Adult Literacy in Medicine (REALM)
- Short Assessment of Health Literacy for Spanish Speaking Adults (SAHLSA)
- Spoken Knowledge of Low Literacy Patients with Diabetes (SKILLD)
- Literacy Assessment for Diabetes (LAD)
REALM
- Medical word recognition and pronunciation test
- Begins with simple words and ends with more difficult words
- Scored on the amount of words pronounced correctly
0-18 words correct - 3rd grade
19-44 words correct - 4th-6th grade
45-60 words correct - 7th-8th grade
61-66 words correct - 9th grade