The Ernst Strüngmann Forum brought together 40 international experts from clinical work, psychology, economy, public health, industry and insurance to analyze systematically the multiple issues involved in health literacy and to delineate concrete ways to improve it.

Their work will now appear in a volume edited by Gerd Gigerenzer and Sir Muir Gray. We are pleased that – besides Gerd Gigerenzer – Markus Feufel, Wolfgang Gaissmaier and Odette Wegwarth from the Harding Center for Risk Literacy are also among the authors.

It seems to go without saying that clinicians know best what to do for their patients, based on scientific evidence and their professional experience. But this common assumption is a prescription for poor health care. Instead, healthcare providers and their patients need to collaborate to determine the best course of medical action. These collaborations must be informed by easily understood evidence about the benefits and risks of specific tests and screening instruments. Patients thereby gain the opportunity to decide what they consider most important for their own health.

The authors of this book strongly recommend that health care be democratized, so that patients and clinicians collaborate on decisions guided by useful information about medical benefits and risks. To begin this process, they propose several concrete steps, reaching from health education, media reporting, and direct-to-consumer advertising to doctor's medical education and targeted research. More about the central results of the forum on which the book is based can be found in the forum's press release and leaflet about the book – or in the review of the German Network for Evidence Based Medicine.

Get your personal copy of "Better Doctors, Better Patients, Better Decisions: Envisioning Health Care 2020"

The chapters are published with the kind permission of the MIT Press and the Ernst Strüngmann Forums. You can find more information following the links.