Health Literacy Resources: Instruction

This guide provides links to resources on health literacy in the United States and guides for clear health communication.

NOW AVAILABLE: Learning and Teaching Health Literacy from an Interprofessional Education and Equity Lens - an online course for faculty

Attention: UMB faculty, instructors, and clinical skills mentors!

Interested in learning about and deepening your understanding of health literacy? Want to discover ways to incorporate health literacy into your existing coursework? This free online course, Learning and Teaching Health Literacy from an Interprofessional Education and Equity Lens, is designed specifically for you!

The course consists of a welcome module & 4 training modules. Completing the full series and receiving a digital certificate takes only 2.5 hours.

To access the course, visit https://cfapps.umaryland.edu/health_literacy/

You will need to login with your UMID. If you have any questions or require additional help navigating the coursework, please contact us: healthliteracy@umaryland.edu. The course is free to UMB faculty.

If you are not a UMB faculty member but would like to access the course, the modules are available on the University of Maryland's Open Learning Platform using this link: https://umd-sph-train.catalog.instructure.com/courses/learning-and-teaching-health-literacy. The cost is $10.00.

Enhancing Patient Outcomes through Clear Health Communication

This free, 90-minute workshop covers the basics of health literacy and introduces tools that can assist you in creating easy-to-read materials.

This workshop is open to UMB faculty, staff, and students periodically during each semester. Register here.

ONLINE TRAINING

Advancing Pharmacy Health Literacy Practices Through Quality Improvement
A set of modules to help pharmacy faculty integrate health literacy and health literacy quality improvement into courses, experiential education, and projects for PharmD students and pharmacy residents. The curricular modules can be used for lectures, seminars, laboratory classes, and experiential education.
Always Use Teach-back Toolkit Interactive Learning Module
This learning module—part of the Always Use Teach-back Toolkit—is available for free through the Institute for Healthcare Advancement. It describes teach-back and demonstrates its effectiveness as a health literacy intervention to improve patient-provider communication by allowing healthcare providers to identify and practice key aspects of teach-back. This module does not provide continuing education or a certificate of completion.
Communicating Science Clearly (CDC)
This course focuses on why we need to clearly communicate scientific information to the public and presents ways scientists, communicators, and policy staff can collaborate to tailor their messages to the intended audience. The course includes exercises for simplifying messages and writing an outline for a story to engage an audience in data.
Effective Communication for Healthcare Teams: Addressing Health Literacy, Limited English Proficiency, and Cultural Differences
This web-based course—available for free through CDC Train—has 4 modules (some introductory, some intermediate). It aims to improve the quality of interaction between healthcare professionals and patients by providing an interactive guide to understanding health literacy, cultural competency, and limited English proficiency. This course provides continuing education and a certificate of completion.
Health Literacy for Public Health Professionals (Web Based) – WB4499R
This CDC course educates public health professionals (such as physicians, registered nurses, and dentists) on the importance of health literacy and their role in providing health information and services and promoting public health literacy. CE credit and a certificate are available for certain professions.
Health Literacy Support. Maryland. Dept. of Health
Contains 6 individual trainings related to health literacy & health communication. Topics include plain language, writing clear health information, and speaking so your audience understands. 3 of the topics are geared towards those working with diabetic patients or those with a chronic disease.
IRB Health Literacy Training
IRBs can play an important role in supporting research study participants by applying health literacy best practices to their reviews of participant-facing materials. Note that these materials are currently being piloted.
NIH Plain Language: Getting Started or Brushing Up
This self-guided online training consists of five sections and a checklist you can print. In each section, you will find a number of cards you can flip through to learn about using plain language in your work. When you are done with the final section, you can print a certificate of completion.
Online Health Literacy Training for Community Health Workers
This self-paced training introduces Community Health Workers (CHWs) to health literacy basics and helps them apply the techniques into their work
Tools for Training Healthcare Professionals
Developed by Health Literacy Kentucky, a statewide coalition dedicated to health literacy training & advocacy.

Last Updated: Aug 13, 2025 11:34 AM
URL: https://guides.hshsl.umaryland.edu/healthliteracy
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Subjects: Health Literacy

Tags: cultural diversity, funding, Informed consent, patient resources

Health Literacy Resources: Instruction

NOW AVAILABLE: Learning and Teaching Health Literacy from an Interprofessional Education and Equity Lens - an online course for faculty

Enhancing Patient Outcomes through Clear Health Communication

ONLINE TRAINING

Projects Maintained by the HSHSL

University of Maryland Schools

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