Table 1 Health literacy & Numeracy domains definition/example

Access Being able to navigate and find health information—it is more than the availability of information and services. It is mediated by education, culture, and language, by the communication skills of professionals, by the nature of materials and messages, and by the settings in which health-related supports are provided

 e.g., “I have the skills to find the health information I want.”

Understand Knowledge about a subject or situation and comprehension of the health condition and information—Cambridge Dictionaries

 e.g., “How confident do you feel you are able to follow the instructions on the label of your inhaler”?

Evaluate To be able to determine whether information/service is applicable to self—to judge or calculate the quality, importance, truthfulness, or value of information—Cambridge Dictionaries

 e.g., “I have the skills to judge which health information can be trusted”

Communicate To share information with others (doctor, caregiver, family members, etc.) by speaking, writing, and body language—Cambridge Dictionaries

 e.g., “I have the skills to describe my health concerns to others”

Use Adapting and applying information to daily life for disease management—to take, hold, or deploy information as a means of accomplishing or achieving health outcomes—Oxford Dictionaries

 e.g., “I can use the information received from doctor/hospital to set my disease management goal”

Health numeracy The degree to which individuals have the capacity to access, process, interpret, communicate, and act on numerical, quantitative, and graphical health information needed to make effective health decisions

 e.g. “I can understand numerical information in my medication/treatment instructions and apply it in my disease management”