Health Literacy

Clear health communication is essential during the COVID-19 pandemic response – and our collective well-being depends on it.

Access to information and the ability to follow public health guidelines is vital to both slowing down the spread of COVID-19 and mitigating its impact and effects. People need to know how to critically assess the information they receive and then act to protect themselves, their family and our communities.

Under normal circumstances, about 60% of Canadian adults and 88% of seniors have trouble accessing, understanding, and acting on information for health (2).

Under stress, a person’s health literacy levels have shown to drop for even further. (3)

The ability of people to acquire and apply health information and adapt behaviour is more critical than ever before.

The exploding the overwhelm of COVID-19 information and its high expectations for controlling health has highlighted an underestimated public health problem – poor health literacy among a population affects everyone.

What do health systems, governments and people need to understand about health literacy for an effective response to COVID-19?

We must consider the health literacy of all people in our health communications – especially those most vulnerable in our communities. We must recognize that culture plays an important role in health communication, and that health communication is affected by belief systems, communication styles and prior knowledge and understanding.

By writing and designing materials that are easy to read, understand, and use, we help everyone. Using clear language is NOT dumbing down. It’s opening up.

For many years, our society has been facing increasing demands to access health information in new ways and increasing rates of chronic illness require individuals to manage their own care more than before. Low levels of health literacy are already related to poorer health outcomes and to increased health care costs (4). During this crisis and into the future, health literacy is everyone’s concern.