Abstract
“Knowledge is the enemy of disease — the application of what we know will have a bigger impact than any drug or technology likely to be introduced in the next decade.” 1
— Sir Muir Gray, Chief Knowledge Officer, National Health System, Great Britain, February 2009
Canadians are big consumers of health and medical news. Just check the front page of any daily newspaper or watch the television news and you'll usually find at least one health-related story. With Statistics Canada estimating that almost 60% of Canadians use the Internet to search for health information, 2 we seem to have an ever-growing appetite for the latest research findings or warnings about drugs, procedures or diseases. For example, today's headlines include “Autism linked to older moms,” 3 “Paxil halts breast-cancer drug benefits” 4 and my personal favourite, “Beer may be good for bones.” 5 Although the accuracy of these stories, particularly those focused on new drugs or treatments, is sometimes questioned, 6 pharmacists know that they need to be up on the news before they go to work or risk being caught off-guard by patients ready to grill them on the latest breaking story.
With health literacy defined as “the ability of individuals to access and use health information to make appropriate health decisions and maintain basic health,” 7 Canadians must be leaders in applying all this news to increase our lifespans, improve our quality of life and reduce health care costs, right? Not according to the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, which reports that unhealthy lifestyle habits and changing demographic patterns are putting more and younger Canadians at risk for cardiovascular illness, threatening to undo much of the last 50 years of progress in fighting the disease and overburden our health care system at the same time. 8,9
The keys to avoiding this “doomsday” scenario are commonsense lifestyle interventions (eat more vegetables, increase physical activity, decrease the prevalence of hypertension, etc.) — the kinds of recommendations well supported by evidence, but difficult to implement. 9 So, maybe in addition to helping our patients improve adherence to evidence-based therapy (see page 74), we really should be asking ourselves what we need to do in our own lives to set a good example, enjoy healthier lifestyles and ultimately reduce the burden of chronic disease. Perhaps that's the first step to connecting knowledge to action.