Nearly half of all American adults—90 million people—have difficulty understanding and acting upon health information. The American Academy of Pediatrics is joining the effort to address the challenge of low health literacy.

* AAP has developed a compendium of 25 reproducible, plain language handouts, "Plain Language Pediatric Patient Education: Handouts for Common Pediatric Topics."

*AAP Healthy Tomorrows Partnership for Children Sponsored a webinar entities, Putting Health Literacy into Practice: A Pediatric Approach. (See slides and parent video clips from the Webinar.)

* The AAP has formed a Health Literacy Project Advisory Committee to spearhead AAP efforts related to health literacy. Key aspects of the initiative include 1) the development of a health literacy guidebook focused on family understanding for common pediatric conditions, 2) development of a PediaLink module for residency training, 3) hosting a pediatric-focused expert conference, and 4) conducting a Periodic Survey of Fellows and a Graduating Resident Survey addressing health literacy.

* The American Medical Association (AMA) Foundation has provided the AAP with a limited supply of toolkits, “Health Literacy: Help Your Patients Understand.” AAP members interested in receiving these toolkits should contact William Cull, PhD at wcull@aap.org

Other health literacy resources:

* Institute of Medicine Report On Health Literacey, "Health Literacy: A Prescription to End Confusion."
(http://www.iom.edu/?id=19723&redirect=0)

* 7th Annual National Health Communication Conference Co-Sponsored by the Institute of Medicine
November 19, 2008
(http://foundation.acponline.org/hl/hcc2008.htm)

* AMA Foundation
(http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/8115.html)

* Partnership for Clear Health Communication—AAP is member organization.
(http://www.askme3.org/PFCHC/)