Consumer health information

Abstract

www.ccl-cca.ca/literacy What part of your district would benefit most from a family literacy program? What’s the average literacy level in the area surrounding your library? This kind of granular data on literacy levels across different communities is now available, for free. The Canadian Council on Learning has launched an interactive online map that shows adult prose literacy levels in 52 200 cities, towns, and communities across the country. The map allows you to zoom in and get data on a particular neighbourhood or zoom out and see the patchwork of different literacy levels within a city, town, or region. The map uses data from the 2003 International Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey (IALSS), which was conducted by Statistics Canada and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and combines it with 2006 Census data. It displays levels of prose literacy — that is, the knowledge and skills needed to understand and use information from text, such as news stories, editorials, poems, and fiction. The map drives home a sobering point. According to the 2003 data, nearly half of all Canadian adults have low literacy levels (level 2 or below), meaning they are ill prepared for the current demands of society. As many of you know, adult literacy is often measured on a prose literacy scale of 1 to 5. Level 3 is widely considered to be the minimum threshold for coping with the demands of the global knowledge-based economy. That nearly half the population can’t cope with today’s literacy demands should be a wake-up call, especially for those of us concerned with health.