Health literacy is low among the people, said Farzad Peyrouyan, deputy of planning and programs at the Food and Drug Administration. “People’s average capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services necessary to make appropriate health decisions is not desirable, and that leads to 20% to 50% of Iranians not taking their medications as prescribed,” he said, Mehr News Agency reported. According to international research, more than half the world’s people do not understand their medication instructions. Also, studies by the World Health Organization show that only 12% of adults have proficient health literacy. This means the rest of the adults have basic or below basic health literacy. “However, the level of literacy depends also on demographics and high disparities are seen between the urban and rural regions,” Peyrouyan added.
