Health literacy at the Schools for Health in Europe Network Foundation
Health literacy has also been on the agenda of the Schools for Health in Europe Network Foundation (SHE) for some time now. SHE is an international school health network funded by the European Commission and supported by WHO, comprising the 53 WHO European Region member states. In SHE education and health are sustainably thought and brought together in science, practice and policy. With its pan-European reach, SHE is reaching countries in Europe as well as in Central Asia. Recently, the SHE "European Standards and Indicators" for Health Promoting Schools was published, a landmark document that added health literacy as a central building block into the curriculum dimension of the holistic school health promotion and prevention strategy. Although the document is still relatively new, version 2.0 has already been published, in which the standards and indicators have been updated.
Together with Leena Paakkari from Finland (University of Jyväskala) and Kevin Dadaczynski from Germany (Hochschule Fulda), Orkan Okan has prepared the SHE Fact Sheet "Health literacy in schools", which has since been translated into numerous other languages, and is also available in German, Danish, Italian, including additional material, Portuguese, Greek, French, Spanish and Lithuanian (and hopefully more languages will follow - get in touch with the SHE office, if you would like to provide your country translation). The fact sheet provide a plethora of information regarding schools, including an evidence synthesis, for which the available literature was analyzed as part of a scoping review, which led to developing a set of recommendations for action and a strategy for the sustainable implementation of health literacy in schools in the WHO European Region and beyond. As part of the evidence synthesis, an animated film was also produced, which you can watch below.
Summary
The aim of this SHE Factsheet is to provide an overview of current evidence on health literacy with a specific focus on schools, pupils, and educational staff (including teachers, school principals, and school staff). It intends to inform professionals and organisations working in and with schools (e.g. ministries, teachers, teacher training institutions, stakeholders in school health promotion, educational administrators, and educational policy- and decision-makers) on how health literacy can be addressed as part of the Health Promoting School (HPS) framework at an individual and organisational level. This Factsheet on health literacy in schools follows up on the SHE Factsheet on Health Promoting Schools and has been carried out based on a rapid narrative review.