Background: Health literacy is the ability with which individuals can obtain, understand, and apply basic health information. Approximately 36% of Americans have basic or below basic health literacy skills. This low health literacy is particularly prevalent in neurosurgery, a growing field of medicine with considerable complexity and a patient population commonly affected with disease-related cognitive impairment. Consequences of poor patient understanding range from increased emergency department admissions rates to reduced adherence to preoperative medication instructions. Economic implications include increasing health care expenditures, decreasing access to health care, and decreasing quality of care. Health literacy costs the United States $106-236 billion per year.
Methods: Consequences of inadequate patient understanding vary widely. This article reviews and addresses the economic impact of the failure to address low health literacy in neurosurgery.
Results: Various groups have proposed techniques and devised outlines to improve health literacy, such as detailing principles targeting the underlying issues of health care illiteracy. The government, through legislation including the Affordable Care Act and the National Action Plan to Improve Health Literacy, has also shown its desire to remedy the effects of insufficient health literacy.
Conclusions: Despite current efforts, further action is still needed. Health literacy is a key determinant in ensuring longevity and quality of life.
Keywords: Health care economics; Health literacy; Neurologic surgery.
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