Health Literacy

Health literacy is the use of a wide range of skills that improve the ability of people to act on information in order to live healthier lives. These skills include reading, writing, listening, speaking, numeracy, and critical analysis, as well as other communication and interaction skills.  Health literacy allows the public and personnel working in all health-related contexts to find, understand, evaluate, communicate, and use information.

See our web portals on health literacy and plain language

See Canadian Council on Learning report and interactive map on health literacy in Canada


The Centre for Literacy has been a pioneer and leader in health literacy research and action since 1995.

Examples of health literacy work by The Centre:

  • Writing and evaluation of patient navigation kits on breast and prostate cancer
  • Won the 2000 Weiler Award for furthering social development and social justice through partnerships among individuals and organizations for work on health literacy

How we can help you

  • We have health literacy materials in our library that can be borrowed by anyone in Canada. We can create customized trunks of up to 30 items for extended loans.
  • We have a web portal that links to the best that is known in health literacy practice, policy and research
  • We can help you identify health literacy challenges in your institution and design and evaluate appropriate intervention

You can see an example of our health literacy consulting work in the online course "Health Literacy, You talk to your patients, but do they understand? The importance of Health Literacy to your Practice" .

 

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