The Health Literacy of America's Adults - Part 4: Employers and Occupational Findings

This is the final in a four-part series on health literacy of U.S. Adults. Health literacy by occupation follows what seems intuitively logical to most of us. Health literacy scores tend to correlate with occupation such that 'blue collar' occupations (e.g. transportation, construction, maintenance) have modestly lower literacy scores on average than 'white collar' occupations such as sales, professional fields and financial services. Yet, buried in this rather uneventful data is the singularly stark finding that those employed in farming, fishing and forestry occupations score (on average) considerably below the lowest next occupation.

In our opinion, this is a call for change. What is it about these industry sectors that put literacy on such poor footing. We invite your observations and suggestions.