Literacy and Health in Canada: Is It Really a Problem?

Beginning of article

Canada is seen as an international leader in literacy and health largely as a result of the work carried out by the National Literacy and Health Program coordinated since 1994 by the Canadian Public Health Association. The article in this issue by Smith and Haggerty, however, raises the question of whether or not literacy and health is really a serious problem, at least in the context of health care. As reported in the article, the prevalence of low literacy among patients attending a Family Practice Centre in Montreal was found to be 9% - which is considerably lower than the authors had predicted (between 15% and 40% with a 5% margin of error).

One conclusion of this study might …