Health literacy (HL) is associated with short- and long-term health outcomes, and this is particularly relevant in Hispanics, who are disproportionally affected by lower HL. Hispanics have become the largest minority population in the United States. Also, Hispanics experience higher burdens of chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) than non-Hispanic whites. Thus, effectively choosing culturally appropriate validated instruments that measure a marker found in health assessments should be a serious consideration. This article assesses study design and instrument structures of eight different HL and numeracy instruments to determine how HL was measured across studies.

Categories: Peer-Reviewed Literature
Tags: health equity, patient & consumer engagement, social determinants of health