Barry D Weiss, MD is a tenured professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Arizona College of Medicine. He also is an affiliate professor of public health in the College of Health Sciences at the University of Alaska Anchorage. Dr. Weiss has been involved in health literacy and patient-physician communication for much of his professional career. Among his many accomplishments, he has written more than 150 journal articles, authored several books, advised numerous committees and organizations about health literacy, and developed the health literacy screening tool, the Newest Vital Sign.
In this podcast, Dr. Weiss talks with Helen Osborne about:
- Several well-known health literacy screening tools including the REALM (Rapid Estimate of Adult Literacy in Medicine), TOFHLA (Test of Functional Health Literacy in Adults), Single Item Health Literacy Screen, and NVS (the Newest Vital Sign).
- Reasons to use, and more importantly, not to use health literacy screening tools in routine clinical settings.
- Recommendations about communicating effectively with everyone.
More ways to learn:
- The Newest Vital Sign, http://www.annfammed.org/content/3/6/514.full.pdf+html
- Rapid Estimate of Adult Literacy in Medicine, http://library.med.utah.edu/Patient_Ed/workshop/handouts/realm_test.pdf
- TOFHLA. The whole instrument is available for purchase at http://www.peppercornbooks.com/catalog/information.php?info_id=5. To find an online version of the Short TOFHLA, search the term “TOFHLA pdf”.
- Single Item Health Literacy Screens, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2324160
- Osborne H, “In Other Words: Screening for Health Literacy Using the Newest Vital Sign,” 2007. On Call Full text at http://www.healthliteracy.com/newest-vital-sign
Health Literacy from A to Z: Practical Ways to Communicate Your Health Message, Second Edition (Updated 2018), by Helen Osborne. Relevant chapters include: 1, 2, 11, 27.
Read this podcast’s written transcript.
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