a Read book - your health depends on it
New research shows that having a post-secondary education increases your life expectancy by about seven years
ANDRE PICARD www.theglobeandmail.com March 13, 2008 at 11:41 AM EDT Want your children to grow up to be healthy, wealthy and wise? Then read them a book. Read them a book every night before bed. Read along as they discover the wonders of the alphabet and their first words. Steer them toward computer games that require some literacy, not just thumb dexterity. As they grow up, help them discover books that engross them, such as the Screech Owls series, or the Amos Daragon collection. Have newspapers and magazines around the house. Lead by example, turn off the television and read a book yourself. Do everything in your power to help them stay in school and go on to college or university. While we obsess about our weight, blood pressure and cholesterol levels, the single best predictor of good health and longevity is probably literacy. Literacy is the foundation of a good education and educational achievement is a good predictor of income. That trio - literacy, education, income (not to mention housing and a good physical environment, which flow from income) are powerful determinants of health. And we were reminded this week, in a series of studies, just how powerful those factors can be for our individual and collective health. While life expectancy has been rising steadily for decades, new research published this week in the journal Health Affairs shows those gains have occurred exclusively in people who have a post-secondary education. Once you study in college or university, your life expectancy soars by about seven years, the study showed. Conversely, having only a high-school education puts you on the fast track for an early death.
Canada's census also provides some intriguing data on the topic. British Columbia, by most measures, has the healthiest population in the country. This is usually attributed to the mild West Coast weather and the preponderance of granola types. But the census tells the real story: British Columbia has the most educated population. Only 12 per cent of adults in the province have not completed high school. By comparison, the rate is 15 per cent in Alberta, 17 per cent in Quebec, 26 per cent in Newfoundland and Labrador, and 46 per cent in Nunavut, which, not surprisingly, has the lowest life expectancy in the country. While we are increasingly dependent on technology, the ability to read, count and comprehend written the word remains fundamental. Being illiterate, innumerate or uneducated virtually condemns one to poverty and poor health. Literacy is not only a key factor in obtaining a good job (and the health advantage that comes with income) but, increasingly, being literate is essential to managing one's health, even for those with an education. In an era where much "care" is delivered in seven-minute visits to the family doctor or, worse yet, by anonymous doctors in high-churn walk-in clinics, and where everincreasing numbers of people are living with dizzying combinations of chronic illnesses, patients need a broad set of skills to keep pace. They need to be able to understand drug dosing and schedules, monitor everything from blood sugar to blood gases. They need to decipher the gobbledygook that doctors too often spew out, and to suss out information on reliable websites such as the Canadian Health Network (canadian-health-network.ca). In other words, modern health consumers need health literacy - the ability to find, understand and use health information. Yet, according to a new report, we are a nation of health illiterates: Fewer than half of Canadians (45 per cent) have the skills to deal with basic and routine health information demands. More troubling still, only about 12 per cent of seniors - those most likely to use healthcare services regularly - can cope with the health information demands placed on them. "There are higher information demands being put on Canadians by an increasingly complex health system," said Irving Rootman, a professor in the department of human and social development at the University of Victoria and co-author of the new report, titled A Vision for a Health Literate Canada. (The co-author is Deborah Gordon-ElBihbety, the president and CEO of Research Canada.) They make a compelling case for making health literacy a priority, particularly among those who are already disadvantaged - the elderly, the poor, immigrants, aboriginals.
The report notes that those with the lowest health literacy skills are about 2.5 times more likely to be in poor health than those with the highest literacy levels, and that those who are ill-equipped to deal with the demands of their care actually cost significantly more to care for. But the bottom line is that health literacy is an issue of social justice and that a medicare system worthy of its name needs to promote literacy, because it is a virtual prerequisite to good health. [e-mail]