Patient at community clinics: Recommendations for advancing health literacy

This study aimed to assess community clinics in enhancing health literacy among underserved patients. We focus on patient-provider communication at these clinics to understand how this communication may foster or hinder health literacy and how the organizational health literacy of clinics may be improved.

We surveyed 303 patients at three community clinics to evaluate providers' communication behaviors related to health literacy. The city health department entered surveys into SurveyMonkey™ and analyzed them using Stata/SE™. The analysis included frequencies of all variables for all participants and by clinic. Qualitative methods were also used.

Community clinics are trusted care sources; however, around 13 % of patients reported rarely or never being encouraged to ask questions, 20 % reported providers spoke too fast, and 17 % reported that medical staff were not always informative. Patients needing an interpreter reported more communication problems than those not requiring one, making these results more salient.

Community clinics serving low-income patients can enhance personal and organizational health literacy by improving patient-provider communication such as active listening, encouraging patients to ask questions, and addressing language barriers.

Advancing health literacy impacts community and public health initiatives, improves health disparities, builds patient-provider trust, and improves health systems.