The Institute of Medicine Roundtable on Health Literacy held a workshop to discuss international health literacy efforts.
One of the speakers, Ilona Kickbusch, PhD, director of the Global Health Programme at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, suggested four next steps for advancing health literacy. These steps are outlined in the workshop summary report, "Health Literacy: Improving Health, Health Systems, and Health Policy Around the World:"
1. Integrate the debate about health literacy into key global health debates.
2. Strengthen the link between adult literacy and health literacy.
3. Begin an initiative with the World Economic Forum and possibly the World Health Organization and the International Telecommunication Union on mobile health and health literacy in developing countries.
4. Address the health literacy of key decision-makers.
The authors wrote that this summary report of the workshop is preliminary. The IOM Roundtable plans to release a report on health literacy efforts in the U.S. in the future.
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