Hi Christina,

I do believe using the peer education model has proven to be an invaluable tool in improving health literacy as well reducing health inequality in the population. Another model is the health promotion school model.

I have attached this material for you.

Hope it helps.

Itodo.

Hi Christina,

I do believe using the peer education model has proven to be an invaluable tool in improving health literacy as well reducing health inequality in the population. Another model is the health promotion school model.

I have attached this material for you.

Hope it helps.

Itodo.

Dear Itodo,

many thanks for the information on this community-based approach, and the file! Education, as you suggest, is of course one important part of the health literacy equation. Howerver, since health literacy also depends on the complexity people have to deal with in order to find, understand, appraise, and apply health-related information, we also have to think about designing organizations and healthcare systems in a health literate-friendly manner. In other words, we need to make sure that health-related information is easy to find, easy to understand and easy to follow for those who need it. Additional suggestions in this directions are highly welcome!

Hi Christine,

You are right. It all depends on the goals and objectives of the organisation as well. So once the organisational goals and contexts are taken into account then you look at programme designs using health promotion approach so that the messages reach those who needs it. I suppose this approaches varies from organisations to organisations and from countries to countries. Some organisation might use community health educator to deliver their health promotion programmes, this could be a combination of health education and actual demonstration of health promoting activities. For instance health education around healthy eating awareness could feature actual demonstration of healthy cooking sessions to the target population.

In some areas, the ways and manners in which health literacy programmes are designed and implemented might be dependent of funders.  The funders stipulates what element of health literacy campaigns to be included for a particular population based on identified needs.

Thanks,

Itodo.

Dear Itodo,

It is infact great paper.

Regards

Try the health literacy toolkit For Low- and Middle-Income Countries

A series of information sheets to empower communities and strengthen health systems

It can be down loaded on the SEARO website

Hi Munir,

God to know that you find this resources useful.

Kind regards,

Itodo.

Thank you, Glen, for this valuable suggestion!

Austria has recently launched a national platform to support health literacy in different target groups and settings, and the improvement of population health literacy (following the first comparative EU health literacy survey) is a political goal. One of the interventions we are developing is the improvement of organizational health literacy in healthcare settings - meaning that emphasis is given to the ommunication styles of healthcare personnel, the language - or images - used in information leaflets, the way signage is designed, etc. The idea is to reduce the literacy demands for all, so as to make it easier to find, understand, appraise, and apply health-related information. I am aware of the WHO-Euro publication "Health literacy - the solid facts" and would be interested in more concrete examples of what works across different settings in order to make different types of environment more health literacy-friendly. Thank you for any suggestions!

Try these publications as background.

Article Health literacy in health systems: Perspectives on patient s...

Technical Report A Rapid Evidence Review of Interventions for Improving Healt...

Article Health literacy: Applying current concepts to improve health...

Great - thank you so much, Glenn!

very informative. The Ethiopian Ministry of Health  included health literacy in its 5 year Health Sector Transformation Plan. I can attach the document if there is a need.

Dear Abiy Hiruye Sinke,

great to hear about the developments in Ethiopia - and yes, it would be very informative to see how you include health literacy in your 5 year health sector transformation plan.

ok, detail guides may follow. However, please find attached the Health Sector Transformation Document for Ethiopia.

Please define health literacy.  This means different things to different people.  Also we probably need to know what population.

Make health services easily accessible and less paper work.

Thank you all for your recent answers! @ Abiy Hiruye Sinke: Many thanks for the material! @ Kate: In Austria, we follow the health literacy definition by Sorensen et al (2012) that was the basis for the first comparative health literacy study in Europe. The definition which is a synthesis of other available definitions defines health literacy as follows: "Health literacy is linked to literacy and entails people's knowledge, motivation and competences to access, understand, appraise, and apply health information in order to make judgments and take decisions in everyday life concerning healthcare, disease prevention and health promotion to maintain or improve quality of life during the life course.". Part of the activities necessary to improve health literacy have to be done in the health sector, but there is a lot that needs to be done in other sectors - such as food labeling, for example. What I am interested in in is: what can be done across different sectors to make health information - for purposes of health promotion and prevention - easily available, understandable, appraisable, and applyable?

I did already

I did several days ago

Hi Christina, 

even if you want to address health literacy on a population level it might be useful to specify which groups you want to address – in particular in terms of health inequalities... 

Batterham's recent paper might be a good starting point. 

This does not cover your question on effectiveness but is, IMHO, necessary to move forward...

Best, Joerg

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0033350616000044

Peer education department will be very help full in promoting health education as I believe. For this the health related topics should be added in text books in accordance with level of the course/class.

It is very important how accessible and how trustful are the organisations and the services for health and health care. High quality and respectful exchange with peers and health professionals are important conditions for interventions on the interpersonal level. On the population level it is important to have a high degree of motivation for inter professional and interorganisational movements. In Europe such movements are very segmentorial!

Dear Therese,thank you for your answer - I fully agree. In Austria, we further developed the IOM concept of Health Literate Organizations (compare the article cited below). We standardized the concept and developed an organizational self assessment form to enable organizational diagnosis as a starting point for organizational development towards organizational health literacy.

Article Gesundheitskompetente Krankenbehandlungsorganisationen: Erge...

Hi Christina,

One of the potential interventions is to promote health-related behaviors. Please be referred to this article

Best,

Duong,

Duong, T. V., Sørensen, K., Pelikan, J., Van den Broucke, S., Lin, I. F., Lin, Y.-C., Huang, H.-L., & Chang, P. W. (2017). Health-related behaviors moderate the association between age and self-reported health literacy among Taiwanese women. Women & Health, 58(6), 632-646. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/03630242.2017.1333074

Thank you!

Hi Christina, it's an excellent question and I don't think it has been adequately researched to date. There is a large and growing body of research on the topic of health literacy including those highlighted in the answers you have received to date, but a good systematic review of this research is needed to identify best practice, cost effectiveness and implementation factors. Maybe something to think about?

There may also be answers in this free book, highlighted by Orkan Okan https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/international-handbook-of-health-literacy

Although health literacy itself has not been the central focus of our research, we do have data that the Chronic Disease Self-Management Program increases health literacy. My guess is that the other Self-Management Resource Center Programs would do the same.

• Ory MG, Ahn S, Jiang L, Smith ML, Ritter PL, Whitelaw N, Lorig KL. Successes of a national study of the chronic disease self-management program: Meeting the triple aim of health care reform. Med Care: 51(11):992-8, 2013 Nov 
• Ory MG, Ahn SN, Jiang L, Lorig K, Ritter P, Laurent DL, Whitelaw N, Smith ML: National Study of Chronic Disease Self-Management: Six Month Outcome Findings. J Aging Health: 2013,25:1258