The major activity of the communications department was to assist in the designing and copy writing for the brochure, despite the general perception internally that the communications department and in particular its director, was strong. The author was the first communications staff member to draft copy. The author, with the recognition of the high level of illiteracy in the target audience, put forward the idea that the brochure's copy should be minimal, with short, simple words. Ms. Smith wanted more detail and suggested the copy be written at a primary school grade six readability level, the author recollects. The author advocated a much higher level of readability and the discussion soon took the form of memos, suggested copy and many series' of revisions.

Throughout this correspondence (Appendix B) there are mentions that attention should be given to make the brochure readable by those of lower literacy levels. The development process for the brochure began in October 1994 and continued after the author left his position in the Department in December 1994, ending in June 1995.

The author's initial draft was sparse. Ms. Smith recommended much more information be added to the text. Subsequent drafts were distributed among a variety of people in the department, with occasional mentions of "readability". The attention that was paid to the literacy issue focused on attempting to make ideas clear using simple language (Appendix B).

The breast cancer screening program took a long period to begin. The author monitored the program for the next three years, gathering information for this dissertation.

It was concluded by the Department that the suggestion to the seven Hospital Corporations would be to send out the fore-mentioned letters of invitation along with the brochure. The attention to readability was not reflected in the suggested letter. Despite the author's lobbying for a far simpler letter, it was unchanged as recommended to the corporations.

Some program results

The author chose two of the seven Hospital Corporations, one in the predominantly French, northern region of the province and one in the predominantly English southern region of the province, as representative groups of the project. The author, acting as an informed interviewer, held two update sessions with the Region 2 corporation in the southern region - April 24, 1996, and November 28, 1997. One session was held with the Region 6 corporation in the northern region, on December 1, 1997.