“Health literacy is an important determinant of individual health and should be a priority in Public Health,” says Paulo Santos, a researcher at CINTESIS – Center for Health Technology and Services Research, in a review article published in the journal Cogent Social Sciences, entitled “Health literacy as a key for effective preventive medicine”.
As the first author, Paulo Santos presents a group of studies that show the importance of health literacy in the process of making better decisions and obtaining better health outcomes, namely in the area of preventive medicine.
“From the perspective of prevention, literacy contributes to maximizing the results of health investments and rationalizing available resources, contributing to the sustainability of health systems,” is written in the article.
In a context of limited resources, the CINTESIS researcher believes that investing in health literacy and primary prevention, with the goal of changing lifestyles, is the ideal solution, allowing more with less financial effort and maximizing efficiency.
Paulo Santos sees in health literacy a powerful weapon in the sense of “disinvestment in obsolete technologies”. He gives the example of mammograms, whose overuse is associated with false positives, overdiagnosis and risks.
The researcher and family doctor highlights, however, that it is not enough to publish the best scientific evidence in journals with a high impact factor, or to make guidelines, as if they were carried to practice “by magic”, pointing out the guidelines published in Portugal in recent years as good examples of the difficulty in translating into “plain language”.
In his view, physicians should integrate the patient into the decision-making process, using clear, accessible language without prejudice. “In order to make better choices, patients have to understand the information and integrate it into their routines,” he says, and health professionals have the role of “setting goals and strategies to achieve them.
In conclusion, the commitment to greater health literacy could contribute to a more informed population with more capacity to freely make the best choices, based on the best evidence applied to each case, contributing to an effective prevention in the context of medical and health care.