11.L. Workshop: Digital health literacy of schoolchildren and teachers in Germany
Authors:   Organised by: EUPHA-HL, Technical University Munich, Fulda University of Applied Science (Germany),   Chair persons: Orkan Okan (EUPHA-HL), Kevin Dadaczynski (Germany)
Published: October 2023

Background

Digital health literacy is an evolving concept and an interdisciplinary field of study. Digital health literacy describes the ability of people to find, understand, appraise, and apply digital health information and services. Recently, the concept has gained increased attention in European public health and health policy making. Digitalization of society and health care, the rise of digital communication technologies, the impact of digital health on public health, and the advent of artificial intelligence have all contributed significantly to the increasing uptake of digital health literacy. Children and adolescents frequently access health information sources on the Internet and Social Media these days and virtually interact with peers on health matters. Through digital health literacy, they can learn to better navigate these digital information environments and manage health information and services. In order for children and youth to become digitally health literate, it is important to address the development of digital health literacy as early as in schools. However, not only the competencies of schoolchildren matter but that of teachers are likewise important, and so are teaching and learning environments provided within schools. In Germany, digital education and literacy have become a mandatory requirement for schools and are addressed as cross-cutting topics in different school subjects. Both students and teachers are trained and educated in this new school topic. This new educational concept shares many similarities with digital health literacy and allows using these intersections to address digital health literacy in the school. However, evidence is scarce and not much is known about the state of digital health literacy in students and teachers, and even less is known about whether and to what extent digital health literacy is taught in schools.

Objectives

The goal of this workshop is to present first time findings from a unique German multi-centre, nation-wide school study on digital health literacy in students and teachers conducted in 16 federal states. (i) The first presentation will introduce an adaption of an instrument to measure digital health literacy of schoolchildren in Germany. (ii) The second presentation will introduce first time representative results of schoolchildren's digital health literacy. (iii) The third presentation will have its focus on the learning opportunities in schools concerning digital health literacy from the perspective of schoolchildren. (iv) The fourth presentation will illuminate evidence from the perspective of teaching digital health literacy in schools from the perspective of school teachers and associations with their own digital health literacy. The format of this workshop will be 4x8-minute presentations followed by a 20-minute panel discussion, reflecting the relevance of the results to public health research, practice and policy.

Key messages

• Digital health literacy has become an important public health topic, which must be addressed as early as in schools.

• Targeted curriculum opportunities are important to effectively promote digital health literacy but interventions must address both students and teachers.