Health Literacy and Health Promotion

This article discusses the United States Institute of Medicine's report Health Literacy: A Prescription to End Confusion,
and highlights the implications for health promotion in Canada and other
countries. Author Irving Rootman was a contributing member of the
committee which produced the original report, and he aims to highlight the health
promotion implications which are applicable outside the United States (US) context.



Rootman provides a background and summary of the Health Literacy report,
and cites the following reasons that it has implications outside the US:

1. The International Adult Literacy Survey indicates that
   Canada and other countries also have health literacy problems.
2. Both the definition of health literacy and the conceptual framework
   used by the committee in producing this report are relevant to other countries.
3. Some of the recommendations made by the committee are likely to be relevant
   outside the US.

Rootman
identifies specific aspects and recommendations of the report which he believes
"have implications for health promotion practice and policy":

• the general concept of health contexts that underlies the
  report's findings
• recommendations on the development of conceptual frameworks that take
  such aspects as culture, language and education into account
• recommendations regarding education, which included incorporating
  health education into both adult education and the K-12 curriculum
• some of the recommendations regarding the health care system,
  including "that standards be developed to address health literacy in
  research, training, and service-funding applications"

Irving cautions, however, that since the report was created in a US context the
solutions it contains "need to be carefully examined before being
implemented anywhere else."



The article concludes with a discussion of the efforts to raise awareness of
this report within Canada. These include a workshop held on the report in June
2005 and a focus on the report at the Second National Conference on Literacy and
Health in October 2004.