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Article: Health literacy: a pediatric nursing concern.(Report)
- Article from:
- Pediatric Nursing
- Article date:
- May 1, 2008
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2008 Jannetti Publications, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Health literacy is a serious public health concern. According to a recent national report, over one-third of Americans have inadequate health literacy (Kutner, Greenberg, Jin, & Paulsen, 2006). Health literacy is a specialized type of literacy that refers to the ability to read, understand, and apply health information (Boswell, Cannon, Aung, & Eldridge, 2004; Leyva, Sharif, & Ozuah, 2005). A recent Institute of Medicine (IOM) report, Health Literacy: A Prescription to End Confusion (Nielsen-Bohlman, Panzar, & Kindig, 2004), describes health literacy as "the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and ...