Health literacy plays a pivotal role among commmunity healthcare facilitating appropriate access to health care services and alleviating to navigate through the layers of health care systems.

There is increasing evidence on the influence of limited health literacy on health outcomes, self-care skills and avoidable health care utilization such as hospitalizations. Since now, representative data on the health literacy level of the German population is scarce.

Research objectives:

• Detection of the health literacy level among older populations (>40 years) and their close social networks
• Identification of the impact of the health literacy level on illness behavior and decision-making.
• Analysis of the interrelations between limited health literacy and health outcomes as well as quality of life and health care utilization.
• Unravelling of the role of health literacy in close social networks