Centre for Policy on Ageing



Poor functional health literacy: the silent disability for older people
Author(s)	Leigh Tooth, Michele Clark, Kryss McKenna
Journal title	Australasian Journal on Ageing, vol 19, no 1, February 2000
Pages	pp 14-22
Keywords	Health [elderly] ; Health services ; Communication ; Illiterate persons ; Australia.
Annotation	Use of health care services requires a certain level of literacy of patients, to enable them to follow signs, directions, instructions and prescriptions, complete consent forms and understand written health education materials. Although poor literacy skills affect all groups in the population, older adults with fewer years of education seem to be particularly disadvantaged by an increasing reliance on written communication of health information. This paper explores the link between functional literacy and health, particularly for the older population, provides strategies to practitioners for the management of this problem, and makes suggestions for future research. (AKM).
Accession Number	CPA-000509410 A
Classmark	CC: L: U: VHI: 7YA
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing

...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.