26.E. Workshop: Context and practice of health literacy foundations
Authors:   Organised by: EUPHA Health promotion section, University of Education of Freiburg (Germany), University of Yaoundé (Cameroon), Zurich University of Applied Sciences (Switzerland), CrAdLiSa,   Chair persons: Luís Saboga-Nunes - EUPHA-HP, Orkan Okan – EUPHA-HP
Published: October 2020

The Shanghai declaration (WHO 2016) stated the role that health literacy (HL) may play in the struggle for more equitable society. Moving from good intentions to social practices of HL reveals that the social context where HL is embedded is a key determinant of the establishment of social practices that may play a critical role in wellbeing and quality of life. Exploring how the translation of HL into a social context is achieved or how the social context may determine strategies to face the challenges that HL production need, is a relevant domain in the public health and health promotion agenda.

The aim of this workshop is to share with the audience an opportunity to immerse in five social contexts and explore their HL practices.

The first perspective is from Cameroon and the emphasis is on HL role in increasing health knowledge. The authors share the results of an ethnographic analysis of the role of school children in the development of HL in families. The second presentation will unveil one of the topics that is influencing health and well-being of children today when a large struggle to counter act sugar beverages is at the root of obesity. Therefore, a study case from Portugal will focus on HL impact on nutrition status and water intake in children showing the relevance of the social context considered a way forward in the struggle for health promotion. From Germany a third presentation will consider migrants and refugees children's role in promoting the family HL. Recent research on HL stresses the importance of the social context for children's HL, especially among vulnerable groups such as migrants and refugees. However, reaching migrants is difficult, so experts recommend adult second language courses (SLC) as promising settings to promote HL of migrants and their families. Yet, empirical evidence of promoting family health literacy (FHL) in SLC is scarce and therefore addressing such a topic is seminal towards improving the Shanghai HL vision above referred. In Switzerland, adolescent's mental health promotion is the focus of a psychoeducational tool in the pediatric primary care (PPC) that will be considered in the fourth presentation. The aim is to scrutinized this social context, increase mental health literacy of adolescents by implementing proactive mental health strategies and create an opportunity for open discussion with their pediatrician about mental health. Finally, the fifth presentation aims at illuminating (digital) HL practices using applied linguistics. HL is key to making well-informed health decision in analogous and virtual social situations and organizational contexts. Multiple models and instruments of HL exist, but an in-depth understanding of the various HL-related everyday life situations and their digital and linguistic requirements are scarce. Here, the expertise and necessary skills for everyday communication, including health, are the object of an ethnographic research to help fill this gap.

Key messages

The relevance of the social context and how changes of this context can lead to transformations that influence health literacy of children is a way forward in the struggle for health promotion. share with the audience an opportunity to immerse in five social contexts and explore their HL practices.