Health Literacy

Every October, CDC joins together with other agencies and organizations in observing Health Literacy Month. In addition to raising awareness about the importance of accessible health information for all audiences, OHE invites you to learn more about the connection between health equity communication and health literacy in our recent Conversations in Equity blog post, Connecting Health Equity with Health Literacy through Message Testing. In 2022, OHE conducted message testing to learn more about general audiences’ perspectives on health equity messaging. Findings from message testing underscored that to effectively address skepticism toward achieving health equity, as well as improve health literacy, we need to reframe communication efforts to explain the underlying drivers of inequities. OHE is leading the way in reframing messages to communicate about health equity by shifting the focus to systemic and structural issues and communicating about pathways to addressing health disparities in a meaningful and sustainable way that audiences can understand.

Read the full blog to learn about our three evidence-informed communication principles and solutions to help other communicators and scientists switch the conversation from the typical approach of naming and quantifying health disparities to a more solution-oriented approach of addressing health equity.