Background: Although African American women have a lower incidence of breast cancer, they suffer a 30% higher age-adjusted mortality. Lower health literacy levels diminish women's ability to engage in cancer prevention and detection activities.
Methods: We conducted a focus group with lay health workers, following their completion of structured literacy assessments.
Results: The women's performance established the feasibility and acceptability of incorporating literacy assessments. However, the findings identified perceived limits in existing measures and identified attributes that should be included in cancer-focused literacy assessments.
Conclusions: A cancer-specific literacy assessment could assist community health workers in measuring women's functional cancer literacy.