About Health Literacy Wisconsin
Thank you to all who attended the 2013 Wisconsin Health Literacy Summit! We will be posting presentations and videos from the Summit as soon as possible, and we will send a notification to all attendees once they are ready. Please check back soon!
Our Vision
"People understand health."
Our Mission
"To help people find, understand and use health information and services to make informed decisions."
Health Literacy Wisconsin is a division of Wisconsin Literacy, a nonprofit coalition representing a membership of 65 community-based literacy agencies. We raise awareness of the importance of health literacy skills and foster two-way communication between health care consumers and health care providers.
What is health literacy?
The Institute of Medicine defines health literacy as “the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process and understand basic information and services needed to make appropriate decisions regarding their health.” As such, an individual’s health literacy skills directly correlate to their overall health and well being.
Literacy skills are the strongest predictor of health status, more than age, income, employment status, education level or racial/ethnic group. (Partnership for Clear Health Communication)
Get involved!
We hope you will contact us if you have questions or would like to become involved with health literacy initiatives in Wisconsin.
The Southwest Wisconsin Area Health Education Center provided the funding to launch this site.
