What is health literacy?
Health literacy is being able to access, understand and use information to make choices about your health.
In South Tyneside and Sunderland 65% of us struggle with health literacy.
This means that we might not be able to understand information about things that affect our health.
We need to make sure we're all communicating as simply as possible. It doesn't matter if this is speaking, writing or online.
We want everyone to be able to make informed decisions about their wellbeing, so we need to make sure all of our information is easy to understand.
People who have low health literacy suffer the worst health outcomes. They:
- are more likely to die younger
- are more likely to have long term conditions
- miss appointments more often
- find it hard to take medication correctly
- feel worried and angry
- struggle to look after their own health effectively
The average reading age of adults in the UK is 9-11 years old.
Half of adults find it hard to understand health information. So they struggle to use it to help their health and wellbeing.
We are trying to make sure everything we share is clearer. We want to get to a point where everything we say and write is easier for you to understand.
It's not an easy task. We have a lot of health information. But we have started with things like patient information leaflets and this website.
We want to write in a clear way, at the average UK reading age. This means using as little medical jargon as possible.
We want to talk to you about health using everyday words. We want to check with you to see if we've explained things clearly before you go home.
Tell us if you see any information you think we can make easier to understand.
Email us: stsft.
This website is health literacy approved.
That means the content is written for an average reading age of 9-11.
That's so as many people as possible can understand the information.
