Health literacy in schools at the IHLA
Since the launch of the IHLA Special Interest Group (SIG) "Health Literacy in Schools" in 2020, which Orkan Okan has established together with Leena Paakkari from Finland (University of Jyväskala) and Kevin Dadaczynski from Germany (Hochschule Fulda), health literacy in schools has also been an important topic at IHLA. The SIG works on all topics that are important for establishing and implementing health literacy in schools. A first international meeting took place in the fall of 2021 at IHLA's first Global Health Literacy Summit in Taiwan (due to the Covid-19 pandemic the summit was organized as a virtual event). The SIG continues to grow and consists of individuals from science, practice, and policy. If you would like to join the SIG, please contact the SIG chairs through the IHLA website.
Special Interest Group on Health Literacy in Schools
Health literacy is a critical skill for promoting and maintaining health in the 21st century. Skill development starts early in life and therefore the school setting and the whole educational sector are core contexts to foster health literacy promotion in children, adolescents and young people. In addition, health literacy is also an important issue for educational professions who act as agents for information provision and role models, such as teachers, educational staff and school health professionals. Based on their responsibility for all school matters, school principals should also be addressed to ensure that health literacy is embedded in the organizational context (i.e. as part of a whole-school approach to health).
The aim of this interest group is to collaborate about health literacy in schools and launch a global discussion on available school programs and evidence on health literacy interventions in schools, the readiness of the education sector for targeting health literacy in schools and classrooms, new strategies needed for the inclusion of health literacy into whole school approaches to health promotion (i.e. Health Promoting Schools as favoured by WHO, the Schools for Health in Europe Network Foundation (SHE) and the International School Health Network), the role of technology and new learning environments and teaching methods in education associated with digital change, education policies supporting the uptake of individual and organizational health literacy by schools, and more issues that matter in context of health literacy in schools.
We invite all researchers, practitioners and officials who are committed and interested to improving the knowledge base on individual and organizational health literacy in schools and how health literacy could be embedded into classroom teaching and whole school approaches.
Goals
- To promote and disseminate individual and organizational health literacy as a crucial target for school health promotion.
- To collect evidence on health literacy in schools and for different target groups (pupils, teachers, principals, educational staff).
- To support the education sector to develop and implement health literacy standards.
- To collaborate with other education networks, agencies and organizations as well as those actors relevant for health literacy in schools.
- To support IHLA in becoming a key resource and agent on health literacy in schools around the world.
In order to achieve these goals, this interest group will follow good standards and practices in collaboration with advocates, decision-makers, experts, champions and citizens. We will have regular exchange by e-mail and phone conferences.