Body Talk: Health Literacy and Body Mapping
October 24th, 2008
24/10/08. Can you read this? You’re lucky. Literacy (reading and writing) and numeracy (working with numbers) are skills that will serve you all your life no matter what you do. But literacy also moves beyond reading and writing. Literacy about health (a.k.a. health literacy) is another area where practiced skills will serve you all your life. Yet almost 60% of Canadians don’t have them.
Being able to talk about what’s going on with your body and understand information from your care provider is essential to your health. A report on health literacy in Canada released last year revealed that as many as 60% of adult Canadians have low health literacy. This means they may have trouble reading prescribing instructions or post surgery instructions. They may not be able to understand packaging on medication, including information on side effects or signs indicating it’s time to call the doctor. They may not be able to communicate effectively with their doctors about changes in their health. It could mean people can’t access life-saving information on HIV transmission, safer sex or treatments.
One way of challenging health literacy is body mapping. Body mapping uses a series of guided art exercises designed to help people identify areas of their bodies that are (or have been) in trauma and pain, to express experiences of medication or to identify areas that are misunderstood. It is about developing a visual language that can be used to communicate with health care providers when spoken or written language can’t do the trick. It’s not a replacement for developing health literacy, but it’s another tool that can be put to use in fairly short order.
We are offering a body mapping workshop for members November 28-30 in Victoria, in partnership with CATIE. Facilitated workshops will help women explore their understanding and communication about their bodies through art. No experience (and no fancy talent!) is necessary. For more information, contact Bronwyn.
- Janet
This blog represents the ideas of individual writers, and does not necessarily reflect any formal stance taken by Positive Women's Network.
This was posted on Friday, October 24th, 2008 at 10:00 am and is filed under Body Health, Education & Resources, Special Events, Support . Feel free to respond, or trackback.
One Response to “Body Talk: Health Literacy and Body Mapping”
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cool_kaufmanns@web.de Says:
I am an surgeon specialist practicing in berlin and found your post most interesting. I am looking forward to reading more from you in the near future. regards
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