Resumen de Health literacy and law: : Empowering libraries to improve access to consumer health information and ACA compliance

Katherine E. Hessler

• Low health literacy in the United States is both dangerous and costly. Increasing health literacy is of even greater importance following the passage of the Affordable Care Act, which created millions of new health care consumers, each with particular health information needs. Public libraries are ideally positioned to provide access to high quality information tailored to fulfill health queries, but, unfortunately, low health literacy exists on both sides of the reference desk. This article highlights the greatest challenges in health reference today and reflects on approaches to improve health-related training, outreach, and programming in American libraries.