Oral health literacy: Correcting the mismatch

摘要

Any unnecessary death and most especially the death of a child in an industrialized society such as ours with the means to prevent the cause of death, to intervene early, and treat even late symptoms, is not simply tragic but criminal. Horowitz and Kleinman insist that we learn from the untimely death of Deamonte Driver and take action.Horowitz and Kleinman review steps being taken in Maryland and suggest that attention to health literacy- and, in this important case, to oral health literacy, will enable us to avoid such events and serve to reduce health disparities in the future. They rightly point to the accumulated evidence that close to a majority of US adults have limited literacy skills and that a substantial body of research indicates that those with poor literacy skills are likely to experience untoward health outcomes. We know, for example, that those with limited literacy are less likely to engage in preventive action, to engage in screening and treatment, and to manage a chronic disease well. The publication of findings from the adult literacy surveys conducted first in 1992 and again in 2003 spurred this interest in the possible health effects of the poor literacy skills.