‘What you don’t know will hurt you.’ This was the theme of the president of the Center for Multicultural Health Dr. Nathan Stinson’s speech on Thursday night at 7 p.m. in the Ball Hall auditorium.
Stinson, who was a former head of the Health Literacy Foundation and a former assistant surgeon general, was the first speaker in a series of health presentations. About 60 people attended his lecture, “Health Literacy: What You Don’t Know Will Hurt You,” which stressed the importance of being knowledgeable about health care and the medical systems in America.
Stinson started by giving a widely agreed upon definition of health literacy, which is the capacity to understand health information and use it to make wise health decisions. Randy Wykoff, the dean of public and allied health, commented that it is hard to convey public health through the written word. “Studies show that brochures don’t work,” he said.
A health care administration major said after the presentation, “I learned how important health literacy is and what an impact it really does have on health care.” She went on to say that she would be thinking about it a lot in her studies of the health care field.
Stinson spoke on figures about health literacy. Of the people considered to have low health literacy, only 15 percent adhered to the specific directions on their medication. Of those considered to have high health literacy, only 50 percent followed the directions.
Stinson attributes this data to the general communication problems in the healt care system, and goes on to explain the different aspects that go into understanding healthcare, which consist of fundamental literacy, civil literacy and cultural literacy.
He believes that the medical system as a whole need to be clearer and use language the average person can understand.
Stinson said that when he was in the hospital, he had difficulty navigating though the systems and procedures, and that the education system needs to start considering health literacy.
“Maybe kids should learn how to spell diabetes instead of doorknob,” he said.
Stinson told of his experiences as a doctor for a Navajo tribe. At that hospital, Stinson took an active role in improving the system. He got more interpreters with health knowledge, as opposed to using family members of the Navajos who were usually under 12 years old and not health literate.
He also took efforts to help the health literacy of the population as a whole, and worked with the existing culture and the medicine man. He conceded that if the patients got better, whether by him or the local medicine man, then it didn’t matter who got the credit.
Stinson learned three very important things in those two years: know the language, know the culture, and know the medical expectations the patient has.
Stinson stated that health literacy is an investment that does not involve major funds, but has a huge pay-off.
He insisted that with the massive resources of the United States, there is no excuse for being 29th in the world for life expectancy.
As for the most effective way of spreading health literacy, Stinson said that community meetings and “talking about why it is so important” was key.

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