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Health literacy in Europe: Building a comparative database for shaping public health policy

WP7 Workshop Health Literacy

JA PreventNCD is co-organizing the workshop “Health literacy in Europe: Building a comparative database for shaping public health policy” at the European Public Health Conference in Lisbon, November 2024.

Health literacy is a critical determinant of health and is instrumental in achieving health equity. It encompasses an individual's ability and resources to manage health-related information, interact with healthcare professionals, and navigate the healthcare system to protect, maintain, and improve their health and well-being. Health literacy arises from the interaction of individual competencies with the complexity of information and service environment, and the motivation that comes with it. Associations between health literacy and health behaviours are observed. It could also be considered a social determinant of health and health system utilization, especially under the burden of the COVID-19 pandemic.

To develop and implement targeted public health strategies to boost health literacy in the European Region, it's crucial to have reliable and comparable data on population health literacy. Such data can help to identify key health literacy challenges and population groups most affected. The WHO Action Network on Measuring Population and Organizational Health Literacy (M-POHL) has begun to monitor population health literacy, conducting its first M-POHL Health Literacy Survey (HLS19) in 17 countries in the WHO European Region from 2019 to 2021. The HLS19 tools have been improved in preparation for the second M-POHL Health Literacy Survey (2024-2026; HLS24). These tools are also important to the European Joint Action PreventNCD, whose Work Package 7 Social inequalities has a specific focus on health literacy and non-communicable diseases (Task 7.4).

The workshop will take an in-depth look at the M-POHL HLS24, the most comprehensive Health Literacy Survey in Europe, and the health literacy tools used. It will consist of four presentations: one focusing on the M-POHL HLS24 project overview and collaboration with JA PreventNCD, and three detailing the specific health literacy tools used to assess different facets of health literacy in the general European population, such as HLS24-DIGI for digital health literacy, HLS24-COM-P for communicative health literacy, and HLS24-NAV for navigational health literacy.

The Scientific Lead of Task 7.4, Christopher Le (NO) from the Norwegian Directorate of Health, will co-chair the workshop with the Scientific Lead of the International Coordination Centre of M-POHL, Robert Griebler (AT) from the Austrian National Public Health Institute, who is also the Subtask Lead of 7.4.1 in JA PreventNCD. Among the speakers, Associate Professor Hanne Søberg Finbråten from the Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences who will present the communicative health literacy measurement tool. Finbråten is a member of the Norwegian team for both Task 7.4 and M-POHL HLS24.

Take home messages will be:

  1. The advanced family of HL instruments used in the M-POHL HLS24 project enables comprehensive health literacy monitoring in Europe, and;
  2. The data collected in HLS24 will provide a solid database for shaping public health policy to strengthen population health literacy and promote health equity in Europe.