Nearly half of all American adults - 90 million people - have difficulty understanding and acting upon health information.

From the Institute of Medicine "Health Literacy: A Prescription to End Confusion"

Regional Resources

• Health Literacy
  • Northern NH AHEC's Health Literacy Projects
  • Northeastern VT AHEC Health Literacy and Education
  • Maine AHEC Health Literacy: Vibrant Plain Language for Clear Health Communication.
• Medical Translation/Interpretation
  • NH Minority Health Coalition: Offers medical interpretation services. 603/627-7703 or toll free 1-866-460-9933
  • NH Department of Education, Directory of Translators/Interpreters 603/271-3196 or 603/271-3887.
  • VT Refugee Resettlement Program: Offers professional interpreter and translation services 802/655-1963 or vrrp@vrrp.org

About Health Literacy

• Health Literacy: A Prescription to End Confusion: An April 2004 report from the Institute of Medicine. This site includes the entire report.
• Institute of Medicine's Health Literacy Project
• Literacy and Health Outcomes: From the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality
• Plain Language: Resource from the Federal Government, includes a health section
• Clear Health Communication Initiative from Pfizer: Site offers many tips for writing and speaking in plain language
• Ask Me 3: A quick effective tool designed to improve health communication between patient and provider from the Partnership for Clear Health Communication. Includes tips on writing clearly and other practical advice.
• American Medical Association's Foundation's Health Literacy Campaign
• The Health & Literacy Special Collection: For teachers, students, health educators, or anyone interested in teaching health to people with limited literacy skills.
• Health Literacy Resources: Using Plain Language from the Massachusetts General Hospital Treadwell Library

Consumer Health Information for Low Literacy Users

• English only
  • Health Matters: From the North Country Health Consortium, Inc., provides easy links to health information, including easy to read information and on-line tutorials for approximately 20 health topics. Also provides resource information for New Hampshire's North Country.
• Spanish only
  • National Information Center for Children and Youth with Disabilities in Spanish
  • New York On-line Access to Health Care (NOAH): Spanish site
  • Spanish Education Materials: Multi language health information on a variety of topics including: cancer, cardiology; diabetes; infectious diseases; bereavement and prevention.
  • Interactive Health Tutorials from MedLine Plus: In Spanish, the tutorials are interactive health education resources from the Patient Education Institute. Using animated graphics each tutorial explains a procedure or condition in easy-to-read language. You can also listen to the tutorial.
  • Food and Drug Administration Easy Reading Materials: FDA provides easy-to-read health brochures in both English and Spanish. These brochures
  • Healthfinder in Spanish: Health information developed by the US Department of Health & Human services.
• English & Spanish
  • Interactive Health Tutorials from MedLine Plus: The tutorials are interactive health education resources from the Patient Education Institute. Using animated graphics each tutorial explains a procedure or condition in easy-to-read language. You can also listen to the tutorial. The tutorials are also available in Spanish.
  • The National Center for Farm Worker Health: This portfolio of low literacy, bilingual presentations was developed for use as a patient education tool to supplement and enhance existing teaching methods in migrant health centers and in outreach programs. It was developed with the intention of providing health care practitioners an easy, low cost method for providing health education to low literacy patients who speak English or Spanish. These materials may be printed and used free of charge.
  • Food and Drug Administration Easy Reading Materials: FDA provides easy-to-read health brochures in both English and Spanish. These brochures are available on this Website in both PDF and HTML formats.
• Multiple Languages
  • Association of Asian Pacific Community Health: Provides health information in Chinese, English, Ilocaco, Korean, Lao, Samoan, Tagalog, Vietnamese (minimal charge for these resources)
  • The 24 Languages Project: From the Utah Consumer Health Network, provides consumer health brochures in multiple languages, including French, Spanish, Russian and Serbo-Croatian
  • New South Wales Multi Cultural Health Communication Services: Covers a wide array of health issues and provides an English version of all foreign language materials.
  • SPIRAL (Selected Patient Information Resources in Asian Languages): From Tufts University's Health Sciences Library, health information for Asian language speakers. Provides detailed health information in Chinese, Hmong, Khmer, Korean, Laotian, Thai and Vietnamese. It is a unique multi-language health information site because it is for both physicians and patients.
  • National Network of Libraries of Medicine Other Language Resources
  • Knowledge Application Programs (KAP) KAP's Multi-Language Initiative (MLI) adapts KAP and other Federal Government publications for clients and the general public whose first language is not English. It addresses the unfulfilled needs for treatment products among members of non-English-speaking groups or those with limited English-language abilities. After MLI products are translated and culturally adapted, they are provided online and can be printed electronically.
  • Multi Lingual Health Information for Seniors