The Evolution of Health Literacy: Challenges, Opportunities for Trial Recruitment in the Digital Age

Executive summary

Health literacy has made progress over the past decades, especially with the advent of the internet and social media. However, there is still room for growth in this crucial area. In a time where many people get their health knowledge from social media, misinformation and disinformation can spread like wildfire, making it difficult for users to know who and what to trust.

Sponsors looking to recruit patients for clinical trials need to take these factors into account or risk missing out on patients who fit their protocols. Meeting the right patients where they are in terms of health literacy as well as background and location could make a big difference in convincing them to participate.

The status of health literacy

In 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its definitions of personal and organizational health literacy to fit with the US government’s Healthy People 2030 initiative. Health literacy is central to one of the initiative’s overarching goals to “eliminate health disparities, achieve improved health for all, and attain health literacy to improve the health and well-being of all.”¹ The CDC definitions are as follows:

• Personal health literacy is the degree to which individuals have the ability to find, understand, and use information and services to inform health-related decisions and actions for themselves and others.²
• Organizational health literacy is the degree to which organizations equitably enable individuals to find, understand, and use information and services to inform healthrelated decisions and actions for themselves and others.²

How health literate are we in this digital age where information is at our fingertips? If we are to assess this, we first need to look at how literate we are in general as a society.