HEALTH LITERACY AS A BASIS FOR PRESERVING HEALTH

Abstract

Abstract: The level of health literacy of the population is now becoming an important focus for the development of health systems in various countries. People with low health literacy have higher medical costs and are less efficient in their use of services than people with adequate health literacy populations with high and intermediate health literacy result in reduced overuse of health services, improved quality of life and reduced length of stay in health-care facilities. There are many options for measuring this level and an attempt to improve it, as it contributes not only to improving the quality of medical care but also to reduce the costs of its delivery. The publications of the last 5 years show that in predictive and preventive medicine, health literacy is playing an increasingly important role in public health, providing advanced technologies with the potential to measure and predict individual risks of disease. Future health literacy intervention research should focus on improving the quality of health communication that reaches a diversity of populations, especially by improving frontline professional skills and support. This article describes the concept of health literacy and approaches to its study.