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Plain Language and Health Literacy

The development of the following resources was funded by a grant from The Winnipeg Foundation:

• Going to the Doctor (PDF 1.35 MB)
  This classroom text may be used to familiarize adult learners with questions to ask at the doctor's.
• Instructor's Guide to Going to the Doctor (PDF 788 KB)
• Patient's Prompt Card (PDF 136 KB)
  This wallet-sized folding card will help a client remember what to ask at the doctor's.
• Health Provider's Handy Guide to Working with Clients with Low Literacy Skills (PDF 30 KB)
  This card suggests strategies to use and things to remember when working with clients with low literacy skills.
• Literacy and Health Manual (PDF 157 KB)
  This manual introduces health providers to the links between literacy and health, and offers strategies for reaching clients with low literacy skills.
• Literacy and Health: Defining Links and Developing Partnerships - developed as part of a Population Health project funded by Health Canada in 2003.
  In this project, we gave 16 one-day training sessions to literacy and health practitioners in Regional Health Authorities across Manitoba. During these sessions, we explained the links between low literacy and poor health, encouraged literacy practitioners to incorporate health topics in their curriculum, showed health providers how to make their documents more accessible to patients with low literacy skills, and demonstrated other techniques for reaching "hard to reach" clients.

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Health Resources in Plain Language

We have revised these documents in plain language, but have not focus-tested them (unless we have so indicated). You may use them and adapt them, but we take no responsibility for the accuracy of their content. We welcome any suggested changes. Please let us know if you find these documents useful. Click here to contact us.

With some simple documents, we have placed the original and revised versions side by side. All of the files are in PDF format.

• Manitoba Institute for Patient Safety "It's Safe to Ask"
  Patient resources available in over a dozen languages including Ojibway, Spanish, Amharic, German, Oji-Cree, Tagalog, English, and others.
• The Canadian Public Health Association is a national, independent, not-for-profit, voluntary association representing public health in Canada. CPHA believes in universal and equitable access to the basic conditions which are necessary to achieve health for all Canadians, and is committed to creating health information at a grade level that matches the reading capacity of all citizens.
• Self-Advocacy For Everyone Toolkit
  New MIPS resource

Letters

• A Letter to Parents of a New Baby
  See the original and revised versions, with explanatory comments.
• A Letter of Referral
  See the original and revised versions, with explanatory comments.

Forms

• Registration Form
  Filling in forms can be a challenge for people with low literacy skills. Grouping similar items under subheadings can make the forms easier to understand and fill in.
• Consent Form
  See the original and revised versions, with explanatory comments.

Sexuality Documents

These documents were revised in plain language for Klinic and the Sexuality Education Resource Centre (SERC) as part of a project funded by the Winnipeg Foundation. They are available as handouts at SERC, or on their website (www.serc.mb.ca) along with many other sexuality documents. Or they can be downloaded from the links below.