Skip Navigation

Health Literacy -> Scoring

Of Special Note
Health Literacy Component Trend. It is not possible to establish a health literacy trend between the 1992 NALS and 2003 NAAL because (1) NALS only had 6 health-related questions and (2) only 2 of these were reused in 2003. Two common questions are not enough to establish a health literacy trend between the two assessments. However, the 2003 NAAL provides enough questions for establishing trend with future assessments.

The health literacy score derives from respondents’ performance on 28 health-related questions that are embedded in the main NAAL assessment booklets.

Since each health-related question can be classified as both a health task and a prose, document, or quantitative task, NAAL analysts include NAAL health literacy component data to calculate the prose, document, and quantitative (PDQ) literacy scale scores. However, NAAL also generates a separate, health literacy score, because the knowledge and skills required to perform a health literacy task, though related, are not the same as those required for general literacy tasks.