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The objective was to determine whether patients with low health literacy have higher emergency department (ED) utilization and higher ED recidivism than patients with adequate health literacy.

The study was conducted at an urban academic ED with more than 95,000 annual visits that is part of a 13‐hospital health system, using electronic records that are captured in a central data repository. As part of a larger, cross‐sectional, convenience sample study, health literacy testing was performed using the short test of functional health literacy in adults (S‐TOFHLA) and standard test thresholds identifying those with inadequate, marginal, and adequate health literacy. The authors collected patients' demographic and clinical data, including items known to affect recidivism. This was a structured electronic record review directed at determining 1) the median number of total ED visits in this health …