Literacy health relationships

In June 2005, the Canadian Council on Learning (CCL) held a Health and Learning Knowledge Centre (HLKC) consultation in Vancouver, British Columbia. At the consultation, participants agreed to establish various working groups to address the work of the HLKC. These working groups address life stages in health and learning and concentrate on settings, places, and communities where health and learning takes place.

The Adult Working Group is one of fifteen working groups within the Health and Learning Knowledge Centre (HLKC). The mandate of each working group is to build a knowledge agenda for the Canadian Council on Learning (CCL) under whose auspices the HLKC was established. The Adult Working Group has focused its research on the health and learning of several different adult groups.

Communication gaps between health care providers and people with limited literacy or English language skills create a major barrier to improving health outcomes for many Canadian families.

This report presents the findings of a health information needs assessment conducted by the PEI Literacy Alliance. The Alliance aims to improve health literacy for Islanders. To help reach this goal, the Alliance conducted a health information needs assessment of people with low-literacy skills, focusing on people enrolled in adult education classes who have level two literacy skills.

Have you ever left your doctor's office confused by the advice you were just given? At some time or other, most of us have felt limited in our knowledge and understanding of information related to our health.

This is a report on a national workshop that took place before the Second National Literacy and Health Conference in Ottawa. Canadian graduate students were invited to apply to attend the workshop and conference and 22 graduate students from across Canada were accepted.

This article reviews current literature and research on literacy and health and identifies priorities for research on this topic in Canada. The review found that low literacy has direct and indirect impacts on health. Families are at risk due to difficulty reading medication prescriptions, baby formula instructions and health and safety education materials.

Literacy is related in multiple ways to healthy development. Consequently, it has become a serious concern for Health Canada. The effects of literacy on health are both direct and indirect; whether the health issue is the safe administration of medications and infant formulas or the ability to secure food and housing, literacy is involved.

Health and Literacy are linked. We have learned that people with reading problems have more health problems. We need to learn how to make it easier for people who don't read well to be healthy.

In this brief, the Movement for Canadian Literacy (MCL) calls on the Standing Committee on Finance to recommend the resources necessary to establish a pan-Canadian literacy strategy. Canada's economic and social prosperity will be served if the federal government makes literacy a policy priority.