Fundamentals of Public Communication Campaigns

CHAPTER 6 Differences in Literacy and Culture in Health Campaigns

With the expanding circulation of information across the world, the age-old definition of literacy as the capacity of reading and writing seems insufficient to encapsulate all the aptitudes and skills necessary to allow people to achieve their objectives, to widen their knowledge and potential, and to contribute fully to their community and society at large.¹ According to the US Department of Education, in 2020, 54% of US adults between the ages of 16 and 74―approximately 130 million people―lacked aptitude and skills in literacy, being unable to read at the sixth-grade level. This is not only a shocking statistic. The financial corollaries are immense―up to $2.2 trillion annually―because inadequate literacy influences factors like personal earnings, employment opportunities, general economic growth and, more importantly, well-being and survival.²

A distinction needs to be made between marginal literacy and functional literacy. Marginal literacy is a grade above functional literacy in the sense that it allows people to understand the content of plain reading material for solving problems experienced daily, such as completing a form or applying basic arithmetic and quantitative measures. It is important to note that, although highly literate individuals can better grasp general information, those who are marginally literate still have a harder time applying the general to specific situations. Functional literacy ...