Health literacy: an introduction to the literature.

Adult literacy is inextricably linked with adults' understanding of educational and informational materials concerning their health. Approximately 90 million American adults are functionally illiterate or have only marginal reading skills. This article describe the impact of poor literacy skills on patient health and the scope of the challenges to health literacy. The author also describes simple steps which dentists can undertake to identify patients with poor literacy skills and methods which may help improve educational programs for those patients.