health literacy

last week we saw a video on health literacy in our health communication class. It reminded me of the time when I was a kid and didn't read or speak English and because we lived close to the border and medicine was sometimes cheaper in the US my mom would buy them here. I remember reading "translated" labels that were so confusing. I specifically remember a bottle of aspirin that seemed to say not to take while being asleep?? This seemed funny to me. But it shed light on the faults of translating and the possible problems that more dangerous medicine could have on an individual if labels were written in this manner. This topic also hit home on a campaign that i was part of inside of juvenile hall in San Francisco, were we found the need to transcribe all materials related to the health of youth there into six different languages. Materials had been only in English and bad Spanish since their doors opened more than 20 years ago! Incredible