National Adult Literacy Database

Series: The Monograph Series

Authors: W. Craig Roberts, Gail Fawcett

More and more research demonstrates that social, demographic and economic factors and practices affect the health of a population. However, much less is known about literacy skills and practices among those with higher health risks. Understanding these relationships is important, since weak literacy skills may impede good health care practices and healthy lifestyle decisions. Literacy can therefore be considered an important policy issue for health promotion: enhancing literacy can help to achieve health promotion goals, and understanding literacy practices and patterns can assist in more effectively directing health messages to target populations.

Using Canadian data from the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS), this research paper compares the health-related characteristics of seniors with their literacy skills and practices. The findings support the view that literacy skills and practices may serve as "barriers" in the attainment of good health.

This highlights paper is a summary from the fifth in a series of monographs using data from the IALS. For more information, contact : Nancy Darcovich, Statistics Canada, at (613) 951-4585. The document is also available on the National Literacy Secretariat Website at : http://www.nald.ca/fulltext/nls/ials/atrisk/cover.htm (98.12.29)

Funders:

• OLES

Added: 1998-01-01

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See also:

• Personnes à risques : Analyse socio-économique de la santé; et de l'alphabétisme chez les personnes âgées