Culture and Health Literacy Modules

These resources are ideal to enrich the material covered in these modules.

Additional Resources

General

Health Literacy Facts
National Institute for Literacy
Includes health literacy facts concerning health care settings and Medicare patients.

Health Literacy:  A Prescription to End Confusion
From National Academies Press
Provides evidence how important improving heath literacy is to improving the health of individuals and populations (online version of book).

Clear Communication: an NIH Health Literacy Initiative
From the National Institutes of Health
Defines health literacy and discusses why health literacy is an issue for health care professionals.

Literacy and Health Outcomes
From Agency for Health Care Research and Quality
Describes results from 2004 report on literacy and health.

Partnership for Clear Health Communication
A coalition of national organizations that are working together to promote awareness and solutions around the issue of low heath literacy and its effect of health.

The Harvard School of Public Health and Social Behavior Health Literacy Studies
Includes information on health literacy, research, and policy.

Culture and Health Literacy

Addressing Cultural and Linguistic Competence in the HCH Setting: A Brief Guide
From National Health Care for the Homeless Council
Provides a framework for understanding the basic requirements of culturally and linguistically competent health care delivery for homeless populations.

California Health Literacy Initiative
From Literacy Works
Describes a state-wide effort in California to improve health literacy.

Charles B. Wang Community Health Center
Describes an educational program for low literacy Chinese patients with diabetes.

Cultural Competency and Quality of Care: Obtaining the Patient's Perspective
From Common Wealth Fund
Identifies five domains of culturally competent care that can best be assessed through patients' perspectives including a section on linguistic competency.

Culture, Health, and Literacy: A Guide to Health Education Materials for Adults with Limited English Literacy Skills
From World Education
Includes health education materials and websites appropriate for use with people from different cultures and adults with limited literacy skills.

Developing, Translating, and Reviewing Spanish Materials
From North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services
Describes how to develop Spanish language materials.

Ethnomed
From University of Washington
Contains fact sheets, some sound and video on a variety of health conditions in several languages, and information about cultural beliefs and practices as they relate to health care among recent immigrants to the Seattle area and the United States.

Hablamos Juntos Resource Library
From University of San Francisco Fresno Medical Education Center
Includes a resource library that provides signage using universal symbols.

Healthy Roads Media Organization
Contains free health education materials in a number of languages and a variety of formats.

National Center for Cultural Competency
From Georgetown University Center for Child and Human Development
Works to increase the capacity of health and mental health programs to design, implement, and evaluate culturally and linguistically competent service delivery systems.

Project Shine
From Center for Intergenerational Learning, Temple University
Builds partnerships among universities and community based-organizations nationally to address the health literacy needs of elderly immigrants and refugees.

Additional Online Trainings

Health Literacy and Public Health
From New York New Jersey Public Health Training Center
Introduces the concept of health literacy; provides strategies for considering literacy when creating public health messages.

Health Literacy: A Manual for Clinicians
From the American Medical Association
Discusses strategies to improve patient care through health literacy education.