Abstract
Health literacy is defined as the degree to which individuals obtain, process, and
understand basic health information and services to make informed health decisions.
Health literacy is a stronger predictor of health than age, income, employment, education,
and race. Although the field has grown during the past decade, most health literacy
research does not explicitly focus on food or nutrition, and dietetics practitioners
often remain unaware of patients' health literacy level. The purpose of this systematic
review was to summarize the literature on nutrition and health literacy to enhance
dietetics practitioners' awareness of the importance of health literacy in practice
and research. Of the 33 studies reviewed, four focused on measurement development,
16 on readability assessments, and 13 on individual literacy skills assessments. Collective
evaluation revealed four noteworthy gaps, including the need to use more comprehensive
assessment approaches that move beyond readability and numeracy to address the full
spectrum of health literacy factors; the need to apply more robust experimental studies
to examine the effectiveness of health literacy interventions among individuals, communities,
health care providers, and health care systems; the need to explore the moderating
and mediating roles of an individual's health literacy status on nutrition outcomes;
and the need to examine long-term effects of health literacy interventions on nutrition
outcomes. This article defines health literacy gaps and opportunities in nutrition
research and practice, and calls for continued action to elevate the role of dietetics
practitioners in addressing health literacy.
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Biography
E. T. Carbone is an associate professor, Department of Nutrition, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Biography
J. M. Zoellner is an assistant professor, Department of Human Nutrition, Foods, & Exercise, Virginia Polytechnic and State University, Blacksburg
Article info
Publication history
Accepted:
June 29,
2011
Footnotes
Meets Learning Need Codes 4000, 6000, 9000, and 9020. To take the Continuing Professional Education quiz for this article, log in to the Academy's Online Business Center at www.eatright.org/obc, click the “Journal Article Quiz” button, click “Additional Journal CPE Articles,” and select this article's title from a list of available quizzes.
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© 2012 Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
