Education Groups in the US and Low Health Literacy - Research Paper Example

LOW HEALTH LITERACY    COVER LETTER:  The most surprising information is to study the fact that a large number of populations lack basic health information which leads to high death rate and hospitalization. The fact that cannot be ignored here is that low education groups in the US are suffering from a lot of diseases due to low health literacy. Secondly the basic thing I’ve learned is that one should at least have the know how to deal with the common health issues. In this case one should communicate with the general physicians or health care providers in detail.  The toughest part according to me is to find out about the daily life of real life patient and his experience. It was difficult as normally people are not much friendly and cooperating in discussing their health issues and diseases.   The easiest one was the first part as it includes statistics at government sector which can be easily obtained on internet by any government site with authentication.  This assignment can be more improved by including more references, real life experiences and general guide lines for the people having low health literacy.     LOW HEALTH LITERACY; FACTORS, STATISTICS AND SOLUTION:     Good health is one blessing and one should take good care of it. But in this fast moving era people are clearly careless or too busy to care for their health. Health literacy is basically the information or knowledge on which an individual could rely and take proper decisions regarding health. Unfortunately people all over the world lack in general information about their health. Every day it is seen that, over all the number of patients in high ratio diseases is mounting. Distinctly the reason behind this is low health education and lack of interest towards it (Pappas, et. al. 1993). Low education group in the US has little knowledge about how they can have good health and their lack of knowledge leads them towards poor health.     In low education group, low health literacy causes poor health results and eventually the rate of hospitalization increases, and the usage of preventive health services decreases. In this group thus, low health education affects directly on the economy of the country, as the economy is solely dependant upon human resources, so if the people are ill it will result out as slow or minimal progression of work and consequently the economy will be affected (Du Pre, 2009). To solve this problem of low education group of US, it is a must that even a common person should at least have basic knowledge about few things; he/she should know how to calculate blood sugar level, cholesterol level, and preventions towards common diseases, idea about medications and its measurement, healthy diet, calculating the risk factors and nutrition management. Not only this, he/she should have the idea of the root cause of the disease whether it is due to the life style he’s been following or it’s been inherited. Patients are encouraged to question their doctors like   1. What is wrong with them?  2. What should I do or how the disease will be cured?  Questions like these will help a lot in both ways, a low education group patient would be educated about his condition and simultaneously a doctors task is done.    In USA health care literacy among commons is comparatively high to the other nations of the world. Though its not much high, those who got skilful health literacy are only 12 percent which means one out of every ten person can manage the prevention from diseases and can deal with the health issues. 30 million adults, which are nearly 14 percent of the total population, have very poor health literacy and nearly half of the people do not have health insurance (Du Pre, 2009).  Low health education leads to poorer health and high death rate. Recent research tells us the nearly 75 million people have low health knowledge which makes even harder for them to comprehend the usage of fundamental health information.  It’s found out to that 1.5 million people in USA fall ill ever year, 15,000 Americans die each month during the treatment (Baker et. al., 2002). This statistics shows us the fact that low education group has immensely poor health literacy (Williams, et. al., 1995).  Being a patient people from low education group have to face many problems in daily life which includes work, home and society. Problems are generally directly proportional to the intensity of the disease.  Samantha, a diabetic and obesity patient from low education group says, “Life was much easier before this obesity and diabetes. Now I have to be very much careful about my diet intake.”   A healthy person leads a happy life, while a patient whose treatment is still going on, leads an uncertain life. Not only the work but the family at whole suffers until the disease is cured. This is the reason why rational people say, “Prevention is better than cure”.   There are many challenges which the health care providers face. Usually older and poor people, immigrants and non-white people lack in understanding the helpful health care information and most of these people belong to the low education group. This is one great challenge for health care providers. Inadequate literacy skills and reading problem is also one problem which is common among the people mentioned above.  This is how low education and literacy effects health of people. These people face difficulties in filling up the medical forms too, which leads to misconceptions usually.  Communication gap is developed between the one providing the information and one receiving it which makes the situation even more complex. The patient usually gets frustrated and generally these include the patients of Hypertension and diabetes.  Growing population and latest disease entities are one of the major problems. Research says that USA spends more than 17% of the total GDP on health, still the demand is high (Baker, et al, 2002).  In this situation, everyone has to work individually, from doctors or health care providers to the patients. Patients with low education must seek more information regarding the disease from any possible source. Internet here can be very much helpful but the information should be authenticated and not bogus, with references of doctors and health care providing department. On the other hand doctors should make it easy for the patients especially those from low education group to understand the basics of health care by using the plain and primary language in an easiest way. If the patient is having trouble understanding the language, translators should de provided. Like wise if the patient is having difficulty in filling the form or so, the health care providers should assist them in filling up the form. Illustrations can also help the patients to understand few things as actions speak louder than words. Properly made diagram, step by step illustrations may help the patient to understand the situation. Similarly these illustrations can be provided by the pharmaceutical companies at the back of the medicines and drugs to educate the patient regarding the medications and their measurements.  National Health Information Center is doing one great job in spreading the awareness of health care among people. Throughout the year they have scheduled different weeks discussing the prevention and symptoms of numerous diseases and deficiencies like they have this “Diabetes month”, “Lung cancer awareness month”, “National ITP awareness month”, etc (Baker, et. al., 2002).   There are terabytes and terabytes of information present on the internet. Many websites have been made by the government of USA which can help people seven days a week and twenty-four hours a day in making decisions regarding their health. Few examples of government organization are given below:  Mayo Clinic  AMA (American Medical Association)  Likewise there are such websites too. For example:  Health.gov  NIHSeniorHealth.gov  HealthFinder.gov  People should take advantage of such events and should pass on the information to those who missed it. Secondly the government should make these events public and should not make it limited to a certain region.    ABSTRACT:  Summarizing this all, one should know more about his or her health status. There are many sources available for this purpose. Poor education leads to low health literacy. Health care providers should cooperate and use their best communicating skills to deliver the fundamental information to the people.  More events about spreading the health awareness on national scale should be planned. On the other hand people must attend these events and also they should encourage their children to take interest in health education.   Last but not the least it’s a combined task. To develop the awareness doctors, health care providers, government, organizations all have to work together in order to minimize this low literacy about health.    CONCLUSION:  Low education groups have low health literacy levels. Health literacy is not only low in USA; it’s actually a global issue. It is not only due to the carelessness of the patients but also due to the unconcerned attitude of health care providers. People usually think that they know better about their health and give less importance to what a doctor prescribes.    The loop holes and recommendations to fill them are all discussed above. The conclusion is clear and is discussed a lot of times above as the whole discussion derives to just one thing that people should take care of their health not for themselves but for people around them who need them. To give proper health facilities to each and every person of the country is governments foremost responsibility. It is then the governments task to overcome this low literacy about health by using any possible means as the key to a prosperous nation is indeed its human resources!                  REFERENCES:  Du Pre, A. (2009) Communicating About Health: Current issues and Perspectives. 3rd Edition. USA: Oxford University Press.   Pappas, G., Queen, S., Hadden, W. and Fisher, G. (1993) The Increasing Disparity in Mortality between Socioeconomic Groups in the United States, 1960 and 1986. The New England Journal of Medicine. 329: 103-109.   “Patient and Family Education.” Accreditation Manual for Hospitals. Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, 1996    Williams MV, et al. (1995) “Inadequate Functional Health Literacy among Patients at Two Public Hospitals.” Journal of the American Medical Association; 274.    Baker  DW,  Gazmararian JA,  Williams MV, Scott T, Parker  RM,  Green  D, Ren J, Peel J. (2002). Functional health literacy and the risk of hospital admission among Medicare managed care enrollees. American Journal of Public Health      Read More