Perspective: The Role of Numeracy in Health Care
Top Cited Papers
- 26 August 2008
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Health Communication
- Vol. 13 (6), 583-595
- https://doi.org/10.1080/10810730802281791
Abstract
Numeracy, the “ability to understand and use numbers in daily life” is an important but understudied component of literacy. Numeracy-related tasks are common in health care and include understanding nutrition information, interpreting blood sugar readings and other clinical data, adjusting medications, and understanding probability in risk communication. While literacy and numeracy are strongly correlated, we have identified many patients with adequate reading ability but poor numeracy skills. Better tools to measure numeracy and more studies to assess the unique contribution of numeracy are needed. This research can contribute to developing interventions to improve outcomes for patients with poor numeracy.Keywords
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