Alleviation of Health Inequity Through Improvement of Health Literacy

The WHO views health systems as all the activities which aim at promoting, restoring, or maintaining health. For the benefit of mankind, WHO’s ‘Health for All and All for Health’ concept serves as strategic, far-reaching, and guiding vision for various stakeholders of health. Government policymakers should take this concept seriously when formulating and implementing health policies, improving health systems, as well as maintaining health equity. To achieve equitable health services, it is also essential for policymakers to consider structural determi-nants of health such as health system, public policies, resource allocation, cultural and social values, socioeconomic status, gender, and health literacy. Health literacy becomes an important public health goal for alleviating health inequalities within societies. This chapter outlines the equity of health systems and health resources, social determinants of health, definitions, and roles of health literacy, as well as the relationship between health systems, health literacy, and health equity. Policy initiatives, such as improvement of health system, tackling health literacy at multiple levels, sharing of responsibility among stakeholders, formulation of literacy-specific populational policies, as well as strengthening of support for research on health literacy, are recommended.