In many countries, health literacy research, practice, and policy have been moving away from a focus only on medical care and health-care settings to a much broader conceptualization. In this broader ...perspective, health literacy can be obtained and used across many other settings (e.g., school, home, workplaces, government) towards achieving health and wellness goals across the life-course for individuals, families, and communities. The education sector is a critical domain towards these achievements and
is a fundamental process and outcome. This can help towards important public health goals, including critical health literacy, as oriented not only towards individual actions, but also towards supporting effective social and political action. This Perspective Article describes the importance and utility of the
perspective, which, follows a view that health literacy is a
from which improved population health, health promotion and disease prevention could be achieved across diverse contexts. We first describe different educational paradigms to address health literacy and clarify the
perspective as a supportive, instructional and capacity-building global resource across the life-course. Then, using specific examples from Canada, America, and Germany, we provide a snapshot of the diverse ways in which the
perspective can be found in national policies. These include broad national goals and standards (Germany and Canada) and major health care reform (America). We next consider the tensions and gaps that can arise in the translation and implementation of these policies relative to the ideal education for health literacy perspective, especially related to equity. These include the need for funding, goals of the educational system, and limited evaluation of policy in practice. Finally, we highlight strategic opportunities to achieve education for health literacy and equity especially offering examples from innovative practice in Canada across the lifespan.
COVID-19 has created significant challenges for higher education institutions and major disruptions in teaching and learning. To explore the psychological wellbeing of domestic and international ...university students during the COVID-19 pandemic, an online cross-sectional survey recruited 787 university students (18+ years) currently studying at an Australian university. In total, 86.8% reported that COVID-19 had significantly impacted their studies. Overall, 34.7% of students reported a sufficient level of wellbeing, while 33.8% showed low wellbeing and 31.5% very low wellbeing. Wellbeing was significantly higher in postgraduate students compared with undergraduate students. Future anxiety was significantly greater among undergraduate than postgraduate students. Multivariable regression models showed female gender, low subjective social status, negative overall learning experience or reporting COVID-19 having a huge impact on study, were associated with lower wellbeing in the first few months (May-July) of the pandemic. Supporting the health, wellbeing, and learning experiences of all students should be of high priority now and post-pandemic. Strategies specifically targeting female students, and those with low self-reported social status are urgently needed to avoid exacerbating existing disparities.
There is an "infodemic" associated with the COVID-19 pandemic-an overabundance of valid and invalid information. Health literacy is the ability to access, understand, appraise, and apply health ...information, making it crucial for navigating coronavirus and COVID-19 information environments. A cross-sectional representative study of participants ≥ 16 years in Germany was conducted using an online survey. A coronavirus-related health literacy measure was developed (HLS-COVID-Q22). Internal consistency was very high (α = 0.940; ρ = 0.891) and construct validity suggests a sufficient model fit, making HLS-COVID-Q22 a feasible tool for assessing coronavirus-related health literacy in population surveys. While 49.9% of our sample had sufficient levels of coronavirus-related health literacy, 50.1% had "problematic" (15.2%) or "inadequate" (34.9%) levels. Although the overall level of health literacy is high, a vast number of participants report difficulties dealing with coronavirus and COVID-19 information. The participants felt well informed about coronavirus, but 47.8% reported having difficulties judging whether they could trust media information on COVID-19. Confusion about coronavirus information was significantly higher among those who had lower health literacy. This calls for targeted public information campaigns and promotion of population-based health literacy for better navigation of information environments during the infodemic, identification of disinformation, and decision-making based on reliable and trustworthy information.
The promotion of health literacy is seen as an urgent goal in public health and education and, hence, should be integrated in the school context as a component of the holistic health promoting school ...(HPS) approach. However, only limited empirical studies have addressed health literacy of school staff so far. Hence, this study aimed to examine the level of health literacy among school leaders and its association with the extent of HPS implementation.
A cross-sectional study with
= 680 school principals and members of the school management board from Germany was carried out at the end of 2018. Individual health literacy, attitudes, and competencies towards HPS and occupational self-efficacy served as independent variables and the level of HPS implementation was the dependent variable. Data were analyzed using univariate and bivariate analysis as well as multiple binary logistic regression.
29.3% of school leaders show a limited health literacy with significantly higher values found for male respondents. Regression analyses revealed that male gender (OR: 1.91, 95% CI: 1.22-2.99), HPS attitudes (OR: 3.17, 95% CI: 2.13-4.72), and HPS competencies (OR: 3.66, 95% CI: 2.43-5.50) were associated with a lower level of HPS implementation. Furthermore, regression analyses differentiated by gender showed that limited health literacy is associated with a low level of HPS implementation for male school leaders only (OR: 2.81, 95% CI: 1.22-6.45).
The promotion of health literacy especially for male leaders would not only result in positive effects on an individual level but also could contribute to a stronger implementation of activities on school health promotion. We suggest integrating health literacy, HPS attitudes, and competencies more strongly into the qualification and in further training of school leaders.
Summary
The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is a novel virus in the coronavirus family, causing the coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Biomedical vaccines are key but ...alongside biomedical vaccines, a social vaccine can be similarly useful to prevent infection from SARS-CoV-2, if applied as a health promotion strategy. In order to slow down and control the spread of SARS-CoV-2, applying the social vaccine concept should be considered in parallel. From a health promotion perspective, a social vaccine is a process of social and political mobilization driven by governmental and non-governmental organizations aiming at populations by applying interventions such as health communication, education and mass media campaigns as well as determinant-based programs to address environmental factors influencing personal behavior and community capacities to cope with and overcome the societal burdens of COVID-19. In this context, health literacy is significant, as seen in the role it plays in empowering citizens during the COVID-19 pandemic and enabling them to deal with health information considering COVID-19. As a public health strategy, health literacy as a social vaccine will enable individuals and communities to mitigate the spread of the virus by understanding and applying information as provided through governments and health authorities. The aim of this article is to explore health literacy as a promising social vaccine and opportunity to utilize social vaccination and thus be considered as a key public health approach—both bottom-up and top-down—to support the combat of COVID-19 and future states of emergency.
(1) Background: With regard to children and adolescents, health literacy should only not be understood as an individual ability, but rather as dependent based on its contextual determinants. The ...study examines how experts define health literacy in childhood and adolescence and discusses whether they include these factors. (2) Methods: In 48 interviews with experts from 32 countries, specific questions for defining health literacy in childhood and adolescence were analyzed. Data analysis was conducted according to the summary of the qualitative content analysis. Main categories and subcategories were developed exploratively and inductively. (3) Results: No expert had an official definition of health literacy in childhood or adolescence. There were more experts who located health literacy only at the individual level alone than those who located it at both the individual and contextual levels. On the individual level, there was a focus on information processing, knowledge, behavior, and skills. At the contextual level, system responsibility, the ability of others, and relationship between age and development were the main points. (4) Conclusions: To develop an adequate method of dealing with health literacy in the target group, there must be a target group-specific consideration of the dependencies, ages, and developmental stages of that group. While this is considered as consensus in scientific discourse, it has seemingly not yet been adopted in development-related policies internationally.
The entire world is faced with the COVID-19 pandemic, which is also accompanied by an infodemic. This refers to the rapid spread of (accurate and false) information, mainly through internet usage ...increasing. Digital health literacy (DHL) is therefore important for addressing challenges related to online health information and services, as well as for navigation through the complex information landscape with huge amounts of different (and conflicting) information about COVID-19. The aim of this study is to examine the level of DHL in relation to COVID-19 in Slovenian university students and to determine online information-seeking behaviour in order to plan and prepare effective communication interventions for this sub-population. A cross-sectional survey, administered by an online questionnaire, was conducted to collect data on DHL. A total of 3621 students participated, of whom 70% were female and the average age was 22.65 years (SD = 4.65). Bivariate analyses were performed to assess the association of key characteristics with DHL. Overall, the results show that the level of DHL among students is sufficient. Most difficulties were reported in assessing the reliability of information (n = 1484, 49.3%). Approximately one third of the students (n = 847, 27.9%) reported having problems in finding information of their interest, and somewhat more (n = 900, 29.6%) reported difficulties in making a selection among all the information found. Students with a sufficient level of DHL are more likely to seek information through search engines and websites of official institutions, while students with a limited level of DHL more frequently reported using social media for health information searches. It is necessary to establish interventions for a systematic lift of the DHL and health literacy (HL) of all population groups.
Zusammenfassung
Hintergrund
Gesundheitskompetenz gilt heute als wichtige Ressource. Schulen sind bedeutsame Wirkstätten im Leben junger Menschen und können maßgeblich zur Stärkung von ...Gesundheitskompetenz beitragen. Dies auf dem klassischen verhaltensorientierten Weg über Lernangebote, aber auch über einen verhältnisorientierten Ansatz, indem die Schulorganisation
gesundheitskompetent
optimiert wird. Der Ansatz geht zurück auf das Konzept der organisationalen Gesundheitskompetenz, das bereits in verschiedenen Settings angekommen ist und dabei hilft, Organisationsbedingungen so zu gestalten, dass die Gesundheitskompetenz der jeweiligen Klientel gestärkt wird. Das Projekt GeKoOrg-Schule (Gesundheitskompetente Organisation Schule) folgt diesem Ansatz und überträgt ihn auf das Schulsetting.
Ziel der Arbeit
In GeKoOrg-Schule sollte ein Konzept erarbeitet werden, das Standards zur Entwicklung der organisationalen Gesundheitskompetenz in Schulen bereitstellt und beschreibt, welche Aspekte dabei adressiert werden müssen.
Material und Methoden
Für die Konzeptentwicklung wurde auf bestehende Konzepte zur organisationalen Gesundheitskompetenz zurückgegriffen. Die Ausarbeitung erfolgte mithilfe von Kommentierungs- und Revisionsschleifen, in welche schulische Akteur:innen einbezogen wurden.
Ergebnisse
Das GeKoOrg-Schule-Konzept umfasst acht Standards, die verschiedene Bereiche innerhalb der Schulorganisation zur Optimierung und damit zur nachhaltigen Stärkung von Gesundheitskompetenz aufzeigen.
Diskussion
Die Stärkung von Gesundheitskompetenz in und durch Schule bedarf eines umfassenden verhältnisorientierten Ansatzes. Das Organisationsentwicklungskonzept GeKoOrg-Schule ermöglicht Schulen eine settingbasierte Weiterentwicklung zu gesundheitskompetenten Schulen.
The Editorial1 raised an important question: why is health literacy failing so many? It urgently called for effective responses to support people to better manage health information, but also to ...account for the environmental and social forces that shape people's choices. Overcoming the commercial determinants of health and the increase in disinformation on social media and the internet are being highlighted as key drivers of mistrust among people, families, and communities.The WHO2 concept note, published on Sep 6, 2021, emphasises health literacy in the context of schools, already responding to many of the issues raised in the editorial—including environmental and social factors, the commercial determinants of health, and the adverse effect of disinformation on healthy choices. The report makes the case for harnessing the potential of schools to educate children about health and improve school processes and structures, aiming at both behaviour and social change.Health literacy is a relational concept3 that requires addressing personal and organisational health literacy. Organisational health literacy provides a unique framework on the systems level for implementing a whole-of-school approach to promoting health literacy including students, teachers, families, and communities.4 Schools as educational institutions have the potential to address individual differences in learning and to narrow the disparities in learning caused by disadvantaged backgrounds.We believe health literacy failing so many is not the primary issue, but the policy support gap and inequity in investments for health literacy across systems, sectors, and governments should be the target for action.
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