Another study on the relationship between health literacy and health outcomes:

“Limited health literacy is a significant problem in our patients, and why this is so important is because we have moved so far from paternalistic medicine to an approach that is all about shared decision making,” Tormey said, which increases the health literacy burden on the patient. “Most patients, if you look at studies, will say they have limited literacy, that they want to be involved, that they want to be engaged, but they have more barriers to doing so, and they interpret communication differently than patients with adequate health literacy. So we really need to be able to develop tools that can engage these patients and make them feel supported as they embark on these kind of decisions.”