Health literacy in Aotearoa New Zealand: What every medical student needs to do

Health literacy is our ability to manage our wellbeing at a particular point in time given the range of demands placed on us by the way the health system and health services are organised and delivered. These complex demands also include how access to health professionals is controlled and how health information is provided. It can be useful to think of health literacy as a dynamic state of knowledge, skills, and cognitive space relative to need. This helps us to recognise the ever-changing knowledge, skills, and cognitive space we need to manage our wellbeing through life. This dynamic state can also describe our wellbeing at an individual and whānau level with people experiencing many health changes over a lifetime, and disease understanding, treatment and prevention advice continuing to evolve. These constant changes to our health system and within our personal experiences means every person will have health literacy needs at some point