October marks Health Literacy Month — a time to recognize the importance of making health information easy to understand and the health care system easier to navigate.
According to the Canadian Public Health Association, 60 per cent of Canadian adults and 88 per cent of seniors are not health literate. Patients with low health literacy are more likely to make errors when interpreting medication instructions and warning labels. Seniors, immigrants and unemployed people have, on average, lower levels of health literacy skills.
ABC Health Matters is a free literacy program offered by ABC Life Literacy Canada to empower Canadians to manage their health more effectively by increasing their confidence when talking about and making decisions regarding health issues with family, friends and health professionals. The program offers several free downloadable resources to help Canadians improve their health literacy skills. This month, it’s adding two new workbooks to the program: Organizing Care and Healthy Caregiving. These new resources have been made possible thanks to the generous support of The Alexion Charitable Foundation
Organizing Care is designed for people who organize health care for themselves or someone else. It provides information on ways to prepare for medical appointments, strategies to stay organized after appointments, and digital tools to organize care.
Healthy Caregiving is targeted at caregivers, many of whom care for people with chronic illnesses and rare diseases. It focuses on ways caregivers can take care of their mental health, given being a full-time caregiver is extremely hard work. According to the Canadian Centre for Caregiving Excellence, one in four Canadians is a Caregiver, and one in two will become one.
Organizing Care and Healthy Caregiving are also offered as online courses through the ABC Skills Hub – an online learning portal of ABC Life Literacy Canada’s adult literacy programs. Users can sign up for free and complete the courses at their own pace.
In addition to the two new workbooks, there are several other resources available on a number of topics including your rights as a patient, making a medical history card, and tips for your next doctor visit. All can be downloaded for free at abchealthmatters.ca.
“We are grateful to The Alexion Charitable Foundation for helping us expand the ABC Health Matters program which is so greatly needed, especially as we have an aging population,” says Alison Howard, Executive Director of ABC Life Literacy Canada. “More than half of adult Canadians cannot obtain, understand and act upon health information and services to make appropriate health decisions on their own. We hope these new resources will help more Canadians, their caregivers and loved ones improve their health literacy skills, empowering them to feel confident in making the best decisions for their health.”
According to the Canadian Public Health Association, providing chronic patients with education on self-management combined with ongoing supervision by a case manager could create savings of over $2,000 per patient per year.
“Working with ABC Life Literacy Canada to bring health literacy to rare disease patients, providers, and families has been extremely rewarding,” says Samantha Gilman, President & Grants Administrator of the Alexion Charitable Foundation. “We are honored to be partnering with such an esteemed organization as our inaugural Health Literacy grantee and look forward to more years of partnership.”
For more information on ABC Health Matters, or to download free resources, visit abchealthmatters.ca.
