Health Literacy: Improving the Consumer

Do you know how to manage your own health care?

As an aspect of broader personal wellness, being able to take charge of your own health and wellness seems an obvious step. But research in the U.S. shows that a major obstacle to this is health literacy - particularly among groups potentially at risk. In fact, the study contends that health literacy is the biggest single predictor of overall health status, exerting more influence than factors like age, income, employment status, education level, or race and ethnicity.


A new initiative by the Partnership for Clear Health Communication (tm) is focused on helping consumers of health services improve their understanding of health options. The AskMe3 (tm) program is intended to provide health care consumers, health care providers, and organizations with a simple way to improve individual health literacy.

The answer, in their view, is equipping consumers to ask three simple questions:

The intended result is a simplified method of ensuring that consumers of health care services are able to get clear answers to their health concerns, and that they understand how to act appropriately on the health care advice provided.

The initiative's website provides a range of easily downloaded materials for patients, health providers, and employer organizations.

Wellness Programs: Continuing Progress

Workplace wellness programs have evolved in terms of their scope and relative complexity, but there is a continuing body of evidence that any program -- no matter the relative size of the organization -- can have positive impacts.

Two related studies highlight the trend, and provide an interesting glimpse into the evolving nature of workplace wellness programs. Of note, many programs have advanced considerably from an initial health-dominant focus to a broader range of considerations around whole-person wellness, improving organizational culture and workplace learning, and improving overall productivity.

The first, published in 2002 by the now-defunct Canadian Labour and Business Centre (CLBC), provided an overview of Twelve Case Studies on Innovative Workplace Health Initiatives. While highlighting the long-term nature of such initiatives and the relative difficulties in creating universal impact measures, the study emphasized that health and wellness initiatives are most effective when they are seen as an integrated part of the organization's business strategy, rather than being a "nice to have". In turn, this spotlights the leadership dimension of such initiatives -- both executive and staff participation are key.

A follow-up study in 2006 by the Canadian Council on Learning (CCL, which now incorporates the prior work of the CLBC as part of its Work and Learning Knowledge Centre) observed a continuing trend toward greater effectiveness in such programs since 2002. A highlight of the 2006 study is again the critical importance of leadership in such initiatives, with several key steps being present in most of the programs adopted:

Policy and Communication—Senior managers signed health and safety policy commitment statements, which were then brought to the attention of all employees. In some cases, these statements were embedded in the firm’s mission statement.

Organization—Roles, responsibilities and accountability for employees, committees and management were clearly outlined.

Planning and Implementation—Guidelines were developed for proactive health and safety planning, setting of objectives, internal inspections and risk assessments.

Measuring Performance—Commitments were made to consistent data gathering in order to monitor progress in implementation and success in achieving overall objectives.

Audit and Review—Audits and reviews were built into the programs to assess the effectiveness of program delivery systems and overall impact on business performance and employee health, wellness and morale.

Source: http://www.ccl-cca.ca/CCL/Reports/LessonsInLearning/LiL-31March2006.htm