Jessica Y. Lee, DDS, MPH PhD¹, R. Gary Rozier, DDS², Shoou-Yih Daniel Lee, PhD², Deborah Bender, PhD MPH³, and Rafael Ruiz, MPH². (1) Department of Pediatric Dentistry, University of North Carolina, 218 Brauer Hall CB #7450, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7450, 919-966-2739, jessica_lee@dentistry.unc.edu, (2) Department of Health Policy and Administration, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1105F McGavran-Greenberg,CB #7411, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7411, (3) Health Policy and Administration, The University of North Carolina, C.B. 7411, Chapel Hill, NC 27599

According to the 1992 National Adult Literacy Survey, 23% of US adults are functionally illiterate. Because written health information is frequently provided at above the tenth grade level, health messages are not reaching low literacy patients jeopardizing their health status. Research indicates that health literacy is strongly related to health outcomes. Thus, assessing health literacy is important in delivering quality health care. Although tests of health literacy have been developed in the medical field, there are no comparable assessment tools in dentistry and it is unknown whether medical health literacy translates to dental health literacy. The purpose of this research was to develop and pilot test an oral health literacy instrument.

We developed an instrument based on the Rapid Estimate of Adult Literacy in Medicine (REALM), an efficient tool to assess health literacy. Our instrument, the Short Form Rapid Estimate of Adult Literacy in Dentistry (S-REALD), which consists of 30 common dental words listed from the easiest to the most difficult was administered to 202 adults. We tested the relationship of S-REALD to several dental outcomes (dental use, perceived oral health status, and OHIP) and medical health literacy.

Dental health literacy was significantly related to all measures of health literacy in medicine, but medical health literacy was not related to any dental outcome measure. S-REALD was significantly related to perceived oral health status and dental use in the bivariate analyses. It was also significantly related to oral health quality of life in a multivariate analysis. (245 words)

Learning Objectives: Learning Objectives

• Discuss ways to develop and evaluate oral health literacy
• Understand the relationship of dental and medical health literacy

Keywords: Literacy, Communication

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.