Chapters for Change

Chapters for Change is an organization founded on a commitment to sharing well-researched mini-books on complex scientific and medical subjects to underserved and disadvantaged communities. A mini-book is a short book, of around twenty pages, that will be written by a team composed of an expert in the field and undergraduate student writers. Each book will be written by a different team. These will cover a wide-range of topics that concern serious issues in science and healthcare. Health literacy is defined as the ability to read, understand, and apply health information. The scope of health literacy is extremely large and includes understanding and applying knowledge related to health insurance, doctor prescriptions, diagnostic tests, risk factors, lifestyle choices, et cetera. This 2011 study found that low health literacy is associated with poorer health outcomes. They further noted that lower health literacy can explain racial disparities in health outcomes. Further studies are still being done to quantify the precise relationship between health literacy and health outcomes in all their forms. Our organization is attempting to provide a remedy to this challenge by volunteering our time and effort to improving health literacy for our community.