Health insurance is one of the most complex products consumers will ever purchase. Starting October 1st, 2013, new health insurance marketplaces in many states will begin open enrollment for individuals, families and small businesses. Learn about what is being done to ensure consumers are fully informed and understand how to get the coverage they need. Kathy Paez from the American Institutes of Research (AIR) will share the results from a national representative survey of consumer’s health insurance literacy. Coming at this historic juncture, AIR’s applied research offers insights in tailoring outreach and communication messages to consumers trying to understand health insurance in the new state and federal marketplaces. Also presenting will be Jennifer Messenger Heilbronner from the Metropolitan Group. Jennifer will bring an insider’s view into strategies being used by Cover Oregon. As a new state insurance marketplace, her team is tasked with reaching a wide variety of audiences, addressing misperceptions and getting uninsured people in her state covered. This resource was from the fourth session in the CALPACT sponsored Health Communication Matters Webinar Series, which will help participants in all walks of public health to apply health literacy principles to their everyday communications. Please visit here to listen to the audio recording of the webinar: https://cc.readytalk.com/play?id=551ax7 Slides for the webinar: Visit these links for the other resources related to this webinar: Health Literacy Undervalued by Public Health? A tool for public health professionals: http://www.slideshare.net/SPHCalpact/calpact-training-health-literacy-undervalued-by-public-health-training-tool Follow Us on Twitter: @CALPACT Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/CALPACTUCB Website: www.calpact.org Questions? Email sphcalpact@berkeley.edu

1. Helpful Tools and Links:
• American Institutes for Research
• Cover Oregon
• Health Insurance Literacy (HIL) Issue Brief and information about the HIL measure
• Training modules from the University of Maryland that were developed to prepare
consumers to choose and use health insurance
• Kaiser Family Foundation resource on health reform
• Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Medicaid study
• Enroll America Final Report
Resources from Participants
 For those interested in information dissemination, check out: "Social Networks and
Popular Understanding of Science and Health: Sharing Disparities" by Brian Southwell
 Health Literacy Advisor Software from Health Literacy Innovations
 To test reading level, a good resource is the Fry Readability Formula. It is a manual test
but has been validated. Usability can be determined through the SAM (Suitability
Assessment of Materials).
 Another vote for the SAM from the Doaks' book and Fry for English, as measured by the
Health Literacy Advisor tool, from Health Literacy Innovations -- their program has a
Spanish reading level measure as well.
 The Kaiser Family Foundation: "Subsidy Calculator"
Applying Health Literacy to Health Insurance:
Resources