Health Literacy Research: Isn't There Something Better We Could Be Doing?

The number of health literacy articles published each year in scientific journals has increased considerably in recent years. However, the content of those articles continues to focus on the same issues: developing instruments to assess health literacy skills, measuring the health literacy skills of patients, and measuring the reading level of patient education materials. We need to change the focus of health literacy research by studying which approaches to dealing with health literacy result in the best outcomes for patients--making them healthier, having fewer complications, and reducing their health care costs. There is a paucity of high-quality research on such issues, but that is the direction in which the field needs to go.