Workshop: Health literacy: an asset to public health policy
Authors:   Organised by: EUPHA (HP), Bielefeld University, NIVEL, CAPHRI at Maastricht University, Newcastle University, Global Health Literacy Academy, M-POHL Network WHO,   Chair persons: Orkan Okan - EUPHA (HP), Jany Rademakers - Netherlands
Published: November 2019

Health in all Polices (HiAP), the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the social determinants of health, and health equity all have been recently linked with health literacy. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that health literacy has taken a place in many policy documents in the European Union`s member states. Several national, regional and local health literacy strategies are proof that many governments consider health literacy to be important for their national public health goals. The policy interest in health literacy is also well-documented within countries of the WHO Euro Region, where the political commitment to address health literacy is currently rapidly increasing. Accelerated by the WHO and several of its departments, the uptake of health literacy on policy agendas led to various new activities, such as two policy-related “Action Networks” and a “European Roadmap”. In the light of those recent events, the relevance of health literacy for public health, health promotion and digital health has attracted further NGOs and cross European networks to include health literacy to their working programmes and policy agendas.

In this context, our aim is to: (1) present empirical findings from health literacy policy research projects conducted on European and national levels in the WHO Euro Region and (2) initiate a critical discussion among the audience and the presenters.

The 1st presentation will provide a general overview on health literacy policy initiatives in the EU and the WHO Euro Region, showing interesting results on how most policies focus on health care rather other important arenas of everyday life. The 2nd presentation will compare data from two different European health literacy studies and share in-depth knowledge on the specific policy strategies European countries use, such as national, regional and local level policies, or if countries don`t use health literacy in their health policy frameworks. The 3rd presentation will build upon these presentations and provide results from a health literacy policy analysis regarding children. This is to see if and how health literacy policies address children and what kind of policies and policy instruments are used. The 4th presentation will explore how health literacy is applied in context of cancer. The study will discuss results of systematic analysis of National Cancer Control Plans (NCCPs), which is a public health strategy, regarding cancer literacy and the improvement of quality of life of cancer patients. The 5th presentation will introduce the WHO action network for measuring population and organizational health literacy (M-POHL) and its health literacy survey 2019 (HLS19), an initiative that emerged in context of European health literacy policy making and already comprises 24 European countries.

This workshop offers a forum for people interested in public health policy making with a specific focus on health literacy and will allow discussing results, facilitate exchange, and support further synergies.

Key messages

Health literacy policy is an important brick in the Health in All Policies strategy. This workshop will address health literacy policy development on national, European and global levels in different populations.