Daphne and others,

I appreciate you raising this valid point. I did actually mention this concern to Andrew McKechnie, the staff member from Senator Coleman's office who is working on this. I really think that, while it seems that this effort may be in competition with general adult literacy efforts, that it is not actually competing as directly as it seems. In some ways, bringing this issue into the limelight may actually help raise awareness of the need for addressing adult literacy in general.

Health literacy is not just a subset of adult literacy, and efforts (interventions, projects, research, resources, etc.) related to health literacy are not just a subset of adult education efforts. The medical community is a full partner in this, and any work towards improving health literacy will involve them. In general, health tends to have better funding than adult education. I think it's reasonable to assume that any funds directed at health literacy will not be simply deducted from adult literacy funds, but identified from a variety of sources that fund health programs as well. 

For example, there are funds that go to programs within the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) directed at reducing health disparities in the U.S. This is an area that could make tremendous progress by focusing on health literacy.

The interventions and research that may materialize from a bill like this would involve (hopefully!) hospitals and health systems improving their service delivery just as much, if not more, than they would focus on adult literacy programs including health in their curricula.

How might this actually help adult literacy? I can think of two ways. I talked with members of the National Coalition for Literacy this week in their policy forum on health literacy, and they seemed to think that health literacy may be able to serve as a "hook" that will bring adult literacy issues into Americans' consciousness in a way that has not been achieved so far. Also, the bill has potential to bring about a better connection between health professionals and adult literacy professionals. (Also something that we have been working towards, but slowly...) Ideally this would bring to light how instrumental adult literacy practitioners' expertise is in connecting effectively with hard-to-reach populations. This would, hopefully raise the status of literacy professionals.

Sorry to go on so long. I hope this makes sense, and I would love to hear from others!

All the best,
Julie


Julie McKinney
Discussion List Moderator
World Education/NCSALL
jmckinney at worlded.org


>>> "Daphne Greenberg" <ALCDGG at langate.gsu.edu> 12/07/07 12:02 PM >>>

When I first heard about this a few weeks ago, I was very excited. However, as I have had time to think about this, my excitement has lessened. It is confusing that Congress would be considering a new literacy related bill, while at the same time considering to cut adult literacy funding. Is the health literacy community not aware of this, or is the health literacy community thinking that the best way to get money for adult literacy would be to introduce a new type of bill, or maybe because there is so little communication between health literacy folks and general adult literacy folks, that much thought wasn't given to this confusion?

If the health literacy bill is funded, AND the general adult literacy funding cut, does this imply that for example, workplace literacy folks should go for their own bill as should all other aspects of adult literacy?

Here is my perception:

Health literacy focuses on all aspects of literacy related to health. So for example, if I am a 60 year old man with poor literacy skills and prostrate cancer, a good health literacy program for me, would focus on aspects of literacy related to prostrate cancer, screenings, hospital visits, medication, surgery, etc. I many not have time/inclination for learning about other aspects of literacy related to other issues surrounding health-such as dental care, psychological therapies, etc. 

General adult literacy focuses on lifelong literacy skills that will help individuals tackle literacy tasks, regardless of content area-and therefore focuses on decoding, comprehension, spelling, critical thinking- tools that generalize to all aspects of literacy and generalize to all types of lifelong tasks-whether one experiences them at the age of 20 or 90.

It therefore seems to me that health literacy and general adult literacy need to work together, and one could argue that each type of approach is vital and necessary, and neither approach is sufficient on its own. This would be true for other aspects of literacy as well (for example, workplace literacy). So for example, when I am newly diagnosed with something, I may need very functional literacy skills-I need the sight vocabulary and the understanding of all the new concepts that will be presented to me. This is a strength of a health literacy program. So for example, I will need to learn to read the word prostrate but not necessarily the skills of why the word says prostrate. However, knowing why prostrate says prostrate, are the exact skills that if I learned them, would help me when I had my next medical crisis hit and would need to learn a whole new set of words. And this is where the general adult literacy classes come in. Ideally, we want to be able to teach the person
  the tools s/he will need for the future.

If my thinking is correct, then what needs to happen is a coming together of the field at large. We should not be splintering adult literacy into health literacy bills, workplace literacy bills, general adult literacy bills, etc. 

Daphne Greenberg
Georgia State University


>>> "David J. Rosen" <djrosen at comcast.net> 12/4/2007 9:39 AM >>>

Julie and others,

It is heartening to see a bi-partisan bill on health literacy  
introduced in Congress. However, it is disquieting to know that basic  
literacy and numeracy services to adults could be losing $12.5  
million federal funds a year at the same time that health literacy  
gets funded for $10m a year. It is important, I believe, for those  
who are advocating for health literacy not to do so in a vacuum but  
also to advocate for services that will help adults learn to read,  
write, do numeracy, and, for immigrants, to learn English. I  
encourage those who may be interested in advocacy to subscribe to the  
AAACE-NLA discussion list whose focus is adult literacy public policy  
advocacy. To do so go to:

http://lists.literacytent.org/mailman/listinfo/aaace-nla 

David J. Rosen
djrosen at comcast.net 


On Dec 3, 2007, at 2:27 PM, Julie McKinney wrote:


> Hi Everyone,

>

> Great news for health literacy!

>

> Senator Coleman plans to introduce legislation for the National Health

> Literacy Act of 2007 within the next few days.  This much needed  

> federal

> support to advance our public's health literacy has bi-partisan  

> support for

> introduction from Senator Harkin.

>

> You can read the draft of the bill at the following link:

> http://foundation.acponline.org/ 

>

> We will post links soon where you can track the bill's progress on  

> its journey. In the meantime, I would love to hear people's  

> thoughts on the bill and any suggestions for those involved.

>

> (This is instead of this week's Wednesday Question: on Wednesday I  

> will be at the National Coalition for Literacy Policy Forum on  

> Health Literacy.) So let's hear any thoughts on the bill or policy  

> ideas!

>

> All the best,

> Julie

>

>

>

>

>

> Julie McKinney

> Discussion List Moderator

> World Education/NCSALL

> jmckinney at worlded.org 

>

> ----------------------------------------------------

> National Institute for Literacy

> Health and Literacy mailing list

> HealthLiteracy at nifl.gov 

> To unsubscribe or change your subscription settings, please go to  

> http://www.nifl.gov/mailman/listinfo/healthliteracy 

> Email delivered to djrosen at comcast.net 






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