Tu?rkiye’de Yerles?ik Bireylerin Sag?l?k Okuryazarl?k Du?zeylerinin Genel Sag?l?k Harcamalar? U?zerindeki Etkisi

In order to develop health and create health consciousness in the world, the focus has been on individual-based practices and the concept of health literacy (HL) has begun to come to the fore. HL refers to providing individuals with the ability to make the right choices about their own health decisions, as well as ensuring that medical information develops behaviors that will give appropriate decisions about correct understanding, interpretation and health. The inadequacy of health literacy levels, which can be attributed to many factors such as demographic characteristics, genetic factors, nutritional habits, the way of managing diseases, socioeconomic characteristics, causes the resources allocated to health services to not be used excessively or as needed. In this study, it is aimed to analyze the effects of insufficient HL on health expenditures and to determine the financial burden of Turkey (TR) from insufficient HL in health expenditures. For this purpose, estimated cost of inadequate HL for the TR was calculated by using the cost estimation model developed by Vernon and Others (2007) using the assumptions of Friedland (2002) and the data of "Turkey Health Literacy Survey" published by the Health and Social Workers Union in 2014