Research Findings

• Gillis, D. (2007). A community-based approach to health literacy using participatory research [Special issue on Health Literacy.] Adult Learning, 15 (1/2), 14-17.
  (In PDF only - 1.6 MB)
• Gillis, D.E., MacIsaac, A., Quigley, B.A. & Shively, J. (2004). Health literacy: Expanding practitioners' horizons through collaborative research. Journal of Interprofessional Care. 18(4): 449-51.
  (In PDF only - 62k)
• Taking Off the Blindfold: Seeing How Literacy Affects Health (HTML)
  Report June 2004
  - View in PDF (190k)
• If you were me, how could you make it better? Responding to the challenge of literacy and health. Literacies, Spring 2005
  (In PDF only)

In recounting and reflecting upon their lived experiences, adults limited in literacy have openly shared their perceptions of the links between literacy and health.

Some Voices of Experience

The Lived Experience

"Everybody around here just tries to make a go of things, I guess. There is not many jobs and not many job opportunities around here. People around here mostly dropped out of school or just didn't bother with any education. They just don't think they need it around here."

"It makes you feel like a failure when you can't provide what you want for your kids.... I am kind of frustrated when I talk about it, you can hear it in my voice. It is a lot of hurt.... My father is dead, my mother is on her own and I have been left back by myself and now I am supposed to raise my son. But really it is like the job was not finished for me being raised properly. You can't pay the power bill, you don't know how to pay the rent, you don't know how to pay this and that because you never had help from being teached when you were a kid. That is what everything falls down to."

Reflection

"What kind of job you get, education, where you live…it all links up. If you don't have no education, you won't get a good job. Odds are you are going to be a transient, not be stable, not be in good shape. Not good mental health, not making the money that you should be."

"If you have no education then your self -esteem is so low and you don't care. At least when you have a little bit of education, you think a little of yourself and try to do things better."

"Now that I am back in school everything is cleaned up. Like I don't drink, I don't do nothing like that. The thing is, if you are going to go to school everyday it is the same thing as being healthy, really. You have got to be there every day and you are going to feel good every day."

Now What?

"The minimum wage is a big issue. There is not enough, it doesn't cover the cost of your expenses…. By the time you pay your rent and hydro, basics, you don't have enough to go get groceries or gas to go to work…. I think that people would be off social assistance if the government would raise the wages. It would be worth my while to go to work. A lot of people on social assistance are saying 'I am making more here than if I go out to work'."

"Well, the doctors could take a little bit more time to explain to these people what is going on with them. They check you and say, 'This is what you got and take this and goodbye'. Take a little time. I know you are busy, but there are some people that need it. Make verbal tapes to give them ... visuals to look at. Help them, don't leave them wondering."

"If you were me, how could you make it better? That is my question to you. How could you make your life better if you were me? ........ It is not that I did not try. I tried everything that there is to try. I ran out of options."