LIFE (Leaflet: Illustrated For Emerging countries) is a medication packaging system to ensure the use of correct dosages for semi-literate or illiterate users in need.

 

The survival rate of newborn children is a constant concern for the World Health Organization, especially in emerging countries such as Afghanistan, Chad and Guinea-Bissau, the three countries with the highest infant mortality rate on the planet. Brazil, despite not being in the same situation, can also improve – a lot – in this aspect.

 

The lack of formal education and poverty are two of the biggest problems faced by these people. After all, how can you understand a medication leaflet when you can barely read – or worse, when you are illiterate? How to deal with all the very important information that is being passed on and is not being absorbed correctly? How do you know the correct dosage to give to a child and on which occasions, if all you find are highly complex informational texts squeezed in tiny letters onto a single folded sheet?

 

The aim of the LIFE project is to deal with these issues and ensure universal access to information – more dynamic leaflets with better distribution of their content, accessible to literate and non-literate people alike, thus guaranteeing a better quality of life and rate of survival for mothers and children in emerging countries.

Using color blocks for the guide and the pills, all LIFE's elements follow a chromatic pattern that helps identify the correct leaflet with the medicine to be taken. Thus, a pill like folic acid, for example, which is yellow in color, would have a leaflet with yellow elements, the bag with a yellow stripe and the pictograms with yellow elements, ensuring that there is no confusion for the illiterate user and that also there is a greater identification of the patient with what is being described visually.

Elements of the project included:
- Adhesive card, with the patient's instructions on how and why to take the medication; the stickers would be pasted at the health center, as the responsible pharmacist delivered the correct amount of medication to the user;
- Illustrated leaflet, containing all the information in a simplified and visual way;
- Paper bag, which includes the instructional adhesives glued to it, the leaflet and the pills;

- Guide for medical professionals, in order to instruct the patient during the medical appointment.