Nearly half of U.S. adults lack the literacy skills needed to manage their health care, according to an eye-opening national assessment.
They would not, for example, be able to interpret a hospital's informed consent documents, or follow a doctor's medication dosing schedule.
Low health literacy sets the stage for poor health. Studies consistently show that people who score low on health literacy ratings are sicker, incur higher health costs, and spend more time in the hospital than otherwise similar people with adequate health literacy.
To find out if your health literacy is up to par, take this quiz developed by Dr. Barry Weiss at the University of Arizona College of Medicine.
It's called the Newest Vital Sign, or NVS. Keep in mind that the NVS questionnaire was designed and tested with a second person reading the questions out loud to the subject and keeping track of answers. So self-testing as presented here may not be as reliable. We've adapted it with permission from Weiss and Pfizer Inc., which holds the copyright.
Although it takes only three minutes to complete, on average, Weiss and colleagues have shown that it's about as accurate as longer, more in-depth tests of health literacy.
Use the above nutrition label from an ice cream package to answer six questions:
1. If you eat the entire container, how many calories will you eat?2. If you are allowed to eat 60 g of carbohydrates as a snack,how much ice cream could you have?3. Your doctor advises you to reduce the amount of saturated fat inyour diet. You usually have 42 g of saturated fat each day, whichincludes 1 serving of ice cream. If you stop eating ice cream, howmany grams of saturated fat would you be consuming each day?4. If you usually eat 2500 calories in a day, what percentage of yourdaily value of calories will you be eating if you eat one serving?5. Pretend that you are allergic to the following substances:Penicillin, peanuts, latex gloves, and bee stings. Is it safe to eat this ice cream?6. Why or why not?
The answers appear below. If you got five or more answers correct, congratulations. Your health literacy is probably more than adequate.
Four correct is just above average.
Three correct answers was average in Weiss's study with 250 subjects, but that score suggests limited health literacy could be a problem.
Two or less strongly suggests inadequate literacy. Weiss says physicians need to use particular care communicating with patients in this range.
1. 1,000 calories
2. 1 cup, or half the container
3. 33 grams
4. 10 percent
6. Because it has peanut oil