World Bank Document

The U.S. Department of Education’s study of prose, document, and
quantitative literacy has similar findings as do the OECD and Statis-
tics Canada studies (figure 3). The figure shows that nearly 50 percent
of the U.S. population is at levels 1 and 2 (low) and approximately 5
percent is at level 5 (high).

Health Problems.In the U.S. study, health problems are a gradient in
relation to literacy competence. At each step down the scale of liter-
acy capability, the health status of a population worsens. For exam-

66 J. Fraser Mustard

Table 1. Document Literacy, Ages 16–65 Years, 1994–98

Literacy level (percent)

Country Levels 1 and 2 Levels 4 and 5

Sweden 23 34

Canada 42 23

Australia 43 17

United States 48 18

Chile 85 3

Mexico 84 1.7

Source:All data except for Mexico are from OECD and Statistics Canada 2000.

Mexico data are from OECD 2005.

Percent

12345

35

30

25

20

15

10

5

0

Level

Prose

Document

Quantitative

Figure 3. Literacy Levels for the Total Population, U.S.A.

Source:Adapted from U.S. Department of Education 2002, p. 17.