Navigating the world of health is complex and often frustrating at the best of times for most folks but saddle that with illiteracy and it can be downright impossible.
Navigating the world of health is complex and often frustrating at the best of times for most folks but saddle that with illiteracy and it can be downright impossible. Since 2006 the North Bay Literacy Council has studied this issue and confirmed that there is definite link between poor literacy and poor health in the local community.
On Friday Nipissing MPP Monique Smith announced the council has been granted $135,000 from the Ontario Trillium Foundation to help the council take their work farther and raise awareness on this critical issue. The grant, which is spread out over two years will not only help continue promote health literacy, but also see the council work with health professionals to develop tools to stop the gap.
Council staff say the OTF grant will help the Literacy and Health Project initiative establish a training program for tutors using a program developed at Harvard University. A public awareness campaign will be initiated using the “Ask Me Three” material created by Pfizer’s Clear Health Communication Initiative. The North Bay General Hospital and the Northeast Mental Health Centre will participate in a Health Literacy Audit using a tool designed by Literacy Alberta. In year two of the grant, a Literacy and Health conference will be organized to provide information to local and regional literacy and health care providers.
“This project has put the North Bay Literacy Council on the map nationwide as important research is being undertaken right here in our community,” notes MPP Smith.
Medical Officer of Health for the North Bay Parry Sound District Health Unit Dr. Jim Chirico echoed Smith noting that health literacy can be defined as the ability to access and understand, evaluate and communicate information to promote and maintain improved health in a variety of settings across peoples lives.
“Canadians with the poorest health literacy scales are 2½ times more likely to be in poor health, so it really is outstanding the work that you do to help remedy that situation” he tells Literacy council Executive Director Jane Jackson and her staff.
“Because low health literacy causes a myriads of consequences and they include increasing burden of illness on our community. We have reductions in life expectancy, more medication errors occur, more workplace occupational injuries, poor lifestyle choices, less knowledge regarding health issues in disease and treatment, less ability to communicate with health professionals,” he explains.
“Other practical examples are higher stress levels and feeling the vulnerability, less chance of engaging in preventative health measures, less chance of seeking medical help as well and higher rates of hospitalization which certainly impacts all of us. More difficulties using the health care system but I am confident the literacy council will continue to address these really important issues.”
It is also common for people to have a knee-jerk reaction and become well versed on a subject only after they have been diagnosed with an ailment. Project Lead Julie Patterson says the aim of phase three is to help stop the reactionary literacy and get the public on the side of preventative and participatory literacy.
The council also has funds for two other projects 'Making Connections A Workshop for Parents' and the 'Summer Learning Program'.
