Literacy and well-being

6 Education for Health Literacy and well-being The map of illiteracy coincides closely with the maps of poverty, malnutrition, ill-health. lt follows that literacy must form part of the strategy for achieving Health for all The basic statistics on illit- eracy are well known, and certainly provide abundant reason to reflect upon the inequalities of our world . By the most recent estimate there are 824 million illiterates of 15 years of age and above, over 800 million of whom live in the developing nations . While carefully compiled and calcu- lated, these estimates have to be taken with a . certain caution. First. while literacy is measured as a dichotomous variable, it is in fact a continuous one. lt may not be possi- ble to be a little bit pregnant. but it is certainly possible to be a little bit literate. Hence, the statistics de- pend upon where you draw the dividing line. UNESCO has its own definition : a person is literate "who can with understanding both read and write a short simple statement on his everyday life" . Definitions Recognising that this included some who were not sufficiently lit- erate to cope with the complexities of an industrial society, a committee of experts developed a second de- finition for functional literacy : to be functionally literate, an individual must be able to" engage in all those activities in which literacy is re- quired for effective functioning of his group and community . .. " and also be able " ... to continue to use reading, writing and calculation for his own and the country's develop- ment". As will be observed, the second definition is a relative mea- sure . The criterion is the capacity to Learn ing to read in India. The control of many diseases in many parts of the world has been facilitated by positive changes in health behaviour which accompanied higher levels of education and literacy. Photo WHO/F. Dupuy cope with the challenges and exi- gencies posed by the nature of the society in which one resides . So even the concepts of literacy are slippery. Only hard work will of course change the literacy situation , but the statistics are mere numbers on paper or in a computer. lt is noted that those who come to power 1n revolutions often count illiterates differently from their predecessors. But whether there are 824 million or 1000 million illiterates. there are clearly too many of them. What does illiteracy mean to the illiterate? Let us note here that the map of illiteracy closely coincides with the maps of poverty, malnutri- tion, ill-health, infant mortality, etc . Hence. in the typical case, the illiter- ate is not only unable to read and write but he - or more usually she - is poor, hungry, vulnerable to illness. and uncertain that even his or her present miserable circum- stances will not decline to the point where life itself becomes the issue. In these circumstances, does his or her literacy really matter? Would he or she even list illiteracy among life's major problems? While man does not live by bread alone, we can assume that the hunger of the body will normally take precedence over the hunger of the mind, particularly if the intellectual diet available to the new literate is as poor as is normally the case . lt follows that the best argument for doing something about illiteracy is not that it is part of the immense problem of inequality in our world, but that literacy can be part of the answer to remedying it. • From: Eleven issues in literacy fo r t he 1990s, by Arthur Gille tte and John Ryan Assignment Children (UNICEF), 63164, 7983. W oRLD HEALTH, March 1986