Family medicine
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Although there are reports of short-term benefits of health literacy curricula for improving health care professionals' communication with patients, no studies have included long-term follow-up. We sought to determine (1) whether a pre-clerkship health literacy training can improve medical students' perceived knowledge and intended behaviors vis-á-vis communication with patients who have low health literacy, (2) the longevity of any such impact at 12 months, and (3) the impact of a follow-up training 1 year later. ⋯ Among a cohort of pre-clerkship medical students, improvements in perceived knowledge and planned behavior vis-á-vis health literacy training largely did not persist at 12-month follow-up. Efforts to teach medical students about health literacy principles and practices should include a longitudinal or integrated format, rather than a one-time lecture format.