To care for our physical and mental well-being, we need information about our health. Health literacy is the ability to find, understand, and use health information.
You can use the resources on this page to cultivate health literacy in your community.
Health information is often full of unfamiliar medical terms, scientific concepts, and other complex information. Uncertainty and risk can make it hard to know what to do when a health problem happens. When people are feeling overwhelmed — like when they’re sick or stressed about a new diagnosis — it’s even harder to process new information. And people who are part of marginalized or medically underserved groups (e.g., people with disabilities, people in rural areas, people of color, people whose first language isn’t English, and people with low income) may face even more obstacles to getting the health information they need.
Health literacy empowers people to make informed choices about their health. You can foster health literacy in your community by teaching health literacy skills and communicating health information in a way that’s easy to understand.
Use these lesson plans and programs to teach key health literacy skills.
Created by the U.S. Department of Education (ED)
A health literacy lesson plan, along with guidance on teaching health literacy skills to adult learners
Share these resources with community members — or use them as inspiration to plan health literacy programming.
Created by the Office of the U.S. Surgeon General (OSG)
Toolkit designed to help people understand, identify, and stop health misinformation
Use these resources to build your own knowledge of health literacy and learn how to teach health literacy skills in your community.
Created by the Network of the National Library of Medicine (NNLM)
A brief introduction to health literacy, along with training resources to foster health literacy in your community
Created by the Network of the National Library of Medicine (NNLM)
Resources, funding opportunities, and tools to help professionals, like librarians, health care providers, and public health professionals, find reliable health information and address misinformation
Created by the Network of the National Library of Medicine (NNLM)
Free, research-based health resources and training opportunities for public libraries and other community organizations that serve public health needs — including information on how to become an NNLM member organization (membership is free)
Created by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Online course about health literacy and public health
Learn how to communicate health information in a way that’s easy for people to understand.
Created by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Guidance on communicating about health topics in a way that’s easy to understand
Created by National Institutes of Health (NIH)
Resources on topics like health literacy, cultural respect, plain language, and more
Created by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Health Security
Playbook with guidance, tools, templates, and examples to support addressing health misinformation and rumors
Created by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Webpage with guidance on using visuals in health communication
Created by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Website featuring information and tools on health literacy research, practice, and evaluation
Use these tools to evaluate the impact of health-related programs in your community.
Created by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
A framework and resources to help professionals evaluate health literacy-related programs
Created by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
A practical framework that professionals can use to evaluate health-related programs
Created by the Network of the National Library of Medicine (NNLM)
Evaluation and dissemination resources for library and other community-based professionals (some resources are aimed at recipients of NNLM funding and many target underserved populations)
Check out these funding opportunities for health literacy initiatives.
Funded by the Network of the National Library of Medicine (NNLM)
NNLM offers regional funding opportunities to support health literacy programs
Funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH)
NIH offers a variety of funding opportunities for programs that address health literacy at the community level
Find out how libraries, museums, and educational institutions across the country are promoting health literacy.
Created by the Association of Science and Technology Centers (ASTC), American Alliance of Museums (AAM), and Network of the National Library of Medicine (NNLM)
Learn about this initiative that funded the work of museums and libraries in building COVID-19 vaccine confidence in their communities
Created by the National Library of Medicine (NLM)
Find out what health science libraries, public libraries, and other community-based organizations across the U.S. are doing to cultivate health literacy with funding from NLM
