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Plain Language and Health Literacy

Literacy and Health Manual (PDF 157 KB)
This workshop manual introduces health providers to the links between literacy and health and offers strategies for reaching clients with low literacy skills.

The development of these 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 patient 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 patients with low literacy skills.

The following resource was developed as part of a Population Health project funded by Health Canada:

Literacy and Health: Defining Links and Developing Partnerships 2003.

In this project, we gave 16 one-day training sessions to literacy and health practitioners in Regional Health Authorities across Manitoba. We

• explained the links between low literacy and poor health
• encouraged literacy practioners to incorporate health topics in their curriculum
• showed health providers how to make theri documents more accessible to patients with low liteacy skills
• demonstrated other techniques for reaching "hard to reach" clients.

Literacy Partners' Plain Language documents in the community:

“Before and After” Examples

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 here.

Essential Skills Fact Sheet produced by the NWT Literacy Council (PDF 122 KB)