Pharmacy Health Literacy Resources
This site provides pharmacists with recently released health literacy tools and other resources from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
The following are documents and resources to help pharmacists, managers, pharmacy educators and students understand pharmacy health literacy, identify available resources, and link to other important Web sites.
Learn More About Health Literacy
Health Literacy Literature
Health Literacy in Practice—Tools and Resources
Medication Labeling Resources
Learn More About Health Literacy
- Health Literacy and Cultural Competence.
- American College of Physicians (ACP) Foundation.
- American Medical Association (AMA) Foundation: Health Literacy Initiative.
- Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Quick Guide to Health Literacy.
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) free training about health literacy for public health professionals. CPE credits available for pharmacists.
- The National Health Law Program provides information related to language access and health care disparities.
Health Literacy in the Pharmacy Literature
- Andrus MR, Roth MT. Health literacy: A review. Pharmacotherapy 2002; 22(3):282-302. Select for abstract.
- Barnett CW. Patient health literacy in the community pharmacy setting. America's Pharmacist 2006; December:63-71.
- Brown L. Low health literacy: What pharmacists can do to help. J Am Pharm Assoc 2006;46(1):4-6. Select for abstract.
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): Improving Health Literacy for Older Adults—Expert Panel Report 2009.
- Hardin LR. Counseling patients with low health literacy. Frontline pharmacist. Am J Health-Sys Pharm 2005;62(4):364-5. Select for abstract.
- The Health Literacy of America's Adults: Results From the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy.
- Health Literacy Studies at the Harvard School of Public Health.
- Kripalani S, Jacobson KL, Brown S, et al. Development and implementation of a health literacy training program for medical residents. Med Educ Online 2006;11(13). (PDF File, 343 KB; Plugin Software Help)
- Kirk JK, Krick S, Futrell D, et al. Connecting pharmacy and literacy: the North Carolina Medication Information Literacy Project. Am J Pharm Educ 2000;64:277-83.
- National Library of Medicine's bibliography of health literacy literature.
- Ngoh LN. Health literacy: A barrier to pharmacist-patient communication and medication adherence. J Am Pharm Assoc 2009;15(8):45-57. Select for abstract.
- Praska JL, Kripalani S, Seright AL, et al. Identifying and assisting low-literacy patients with medication use: a survey of community pharmacies. Ann Pharmacother 2005;39(9):1441-5. Select for abstract.
- Tkacz VL, Metzger A, Pruchnicki MC. Health literacy in pharmacy. Am J Health Syst Pharm 2008;65(10): 974-81. Select for abstract.
- Warner A, Menachemi N, Brooks RG. Health literacy, medication errors, and health outcomes: is there a relationship? Hospital Pharmacist 2006;41:542-551.
- Wolf MS, Davis TC, Curtis, LM, et al (2016). A Patient-Centered Prescription Drug Label to Promote Appropriate Medication Use and Adherence. J Gen Intern Med. Aug 19. [Epub ahead of print] Select for abstract.
- Wolf MS, Davis TC, Tilson H, et al. Misunderstanding of prescription drug warning labels among patients with low literacy. Am J Health Syst Pharm 2006;63(11):1048-55. Select for abstract.
- Youmans SL, Schillinger D. Functional health literacy and medication use: the pharmacist's role. Ann Pharmacother 2003;37:1726-9. Select for abstract.
Health Literacy in Practice—Tools and Resources
Visit these Web sites for additional background information, tools, and resources for health professionals interested in health literacy:
- The North Carolina Program on Health Literacy provides background information in addition to assessment and communication tools.
- Advancing Pharmacy Health Literacy Practices Through Quality Improvement: Curricular Modules for Faculty is a set of modules to help pharmacy faculty integrate health literacy and health literacy quality improvement into courses, experiential education, and projects for PharmD students and pharmacy residents. The curricular modules can be used for lectures, seminars, laboratory classes, and experiential education.
- The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality commissioned the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to develop a Health Literacy Universal Precautions Toolkit, which offers providers tools to assess their services in relation to health literacy, raise awareness among staff, and improve health literacy practices.
- Institute for Healthcare Improvement: Ask Me 3.
- Hablamos Juntos: Improving Patient-Provider Communication for Latinos.
- The Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion's Health Literacy Improvement Web site.
- The Institute for Safe Medication Practices, with funding from AHRQ, has developed consumer leaflets that offer important safety tips for taking high-risk medicine safely. Leaflets on blood thinners, opioids, and insulin are available free of charge at: http://www.consumermedsafety.org/tools-and-resources/medication-safety-tools-and-resources/high-alert-medications.
- The Society of Hospital Medicine is making available the medication reconciliation tools developed as part of the AHRQ-funded Multi-Center Medication Reconciliation Quality Improvement Study (MARQUIS), You can download the toolkit, which includes training videos on taking the "Best Possible Medication History" and providing effective discharge medication counseling, from: http://www.hospitalmedicine.org/Content/
NavigationMenu/QualityImprovement/QIResourceRooms2/MARQUIS/Medication_Reconcili.htm.
The following instruments can be used to measure literacy in health care settings:
- The Short Assessment of Health Literacy–Spanish and English (SAHL–S&E)
- Rapid Estimate of Adult Literacy in Medicine—Short Form (REALM-SF)
- Short Assessment of Health Literacy for Spanish Adults (SAHLSA-50)
- Test of Functional Health Literacy in Adults (TOFHLA)
- Wide Range Achievement Test (WRAT 3) reading subtest. Wide Range Inc. Wilmington, DE: Wide Range Inc., 1993.
Medication Labeling Resources
- American College of Physicians Foundation (ACP) "Improving Rx drug container labeling: an issue of health literacy and medication safety: a white paper commissioned by the ACP Foundation."
- Institute of Medicine "Standardizing medication labels: confusing patients less. Workshop Summary."
