National Adult Literacy Database

The research presented in this report is a needs assessment of health professionals communicating health information. It complements a previous research project carried out by the PEI Literacy Alliance, entitled "Health Information Needs of Adult Learners in PEI." The intent of this research is to create a snapshot of the issues facing health professionals when communicating with patients. For this project, researchers surveyed 99 health professionals and summarized their findings in this report, as well as in the charts in the attachments section.

As the findings indicate, many health professionals are unaware of the scope of the problem of low health literacy and few professionals have received training in how to communicate with patients with low literacy skills. This report includes a description of the project and key findings; a discussion of the findings; and suggestions from health professionals.