Health Literacy is the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions (Ratzan and Parker, 2000). Health literacy is an important issue in our era. The integrated health literacy model developed by the consortium of European Health Literacy Studies is used as a conceptual framework. 8 different countries, Austria, Bulgaria, Greece, Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, were developed as a measure tool (European Health Literacy survey, HLS-EU). The level of health literacy in European Society was found to be 47,6% inadequate-problematic. Astudy from Germany shows that 54.3% of the population were found to have limited health literacy (Schaeffer, Berens and Vogt, 2017). This means approximately 1 out of 2 people in Germany has a limited understanding of health and limited qualifications for applying health information. Health literacy is a shared function of social and individual factors. Individuals’ health literacy skills and capacities are mediated by their education, culture, and language (Nielsen-Bohlman, 2004). Especially education is the most important aspect of this issue because being informed and applying the knowledge passes from the education process. Although many stakeholders are involved in this process, the first part always starts with a teacher and a student. As we take this example to reality; students are equivalent to applying group, who are people, and teachers are equivalent to healthcare professionals. Every trainer or teacher also are/was trained in some way. As medical doctors, we are a sub-group of healthcare professionals and our education starts in medical faculties/schools. By implementing health literacy education in medical curricula, our chances to improve the current situation, by graduating more equipped medical students from undergraduate programs, will rise. Basically, we must consider a healthcare provider’s ability to use common words and perceive whether a patient understands a discussion or not (Nielsen-Bohlman, 2004). Peer education is one of the hot topics of medical education. Studies show that peer education’s benefits cannot be underestimated in learning processes (Cate and Durning, 2007). Our aim is to both develop and use peer education methods in order to get better outcomes from our educational program. -Goals and Achievements Our main goal is to develop, apply and evaluate a new health literacy education program with peer education method and integrating this program to medical curriculums, with the aim of raising medical doctors’ abilities by basic undergraduate education. By this project, our achievements are: Developing a health literacy education program, developing specific peer education methods for the program, transfer effective and participation educational techniques to medical students, raising abilities of medical students, integrating program to medical curricula, empowering European health institutions’ and systems’ health outputs. 1-Determining the current situation and need analysis: National & International Literature Research: By reviewing the literature, partners will be responsible for determining health literacy education programs in European medical schools/faculties. Determining necessities: Before starting the program development part, there will be studies on 4 target groups for determining necessities. On these target groups, each partner will access and study with a certain number of people. After receiving data from these studies, partners will meet and share results with each other in order to analyze and integrate compiled information to the newly-developing curriculum. Whole necessity analysis will be merged by the coordinator and reported. 2- Publishing a website and creating digital platforms: These will be created for promotion and e-learning. 3- Developing a health literacy education program and material (guide, e learning material etc.) 4-Training new Trainers program: Training new trainers who will actively work on applying for developed program. With this aim, the training program will be developed (appr. 5 days) on “health literacy contents with participation and peer education methods” subject and training event will be organized in a partner country for training other partners. At the end of training events, each country will have 3-4 trainers. 5- Pilot implementation to learners and evaluation and update of materials in the program 6- Implementation of the programme in the project partners 7-Final education programme and reporting will be done from implemantation and measurement evaluation studies 8-Project Evaluation and Reporting: Project, operations will be assessed and evaluated. In this way, health literacy for medical education will be an exemplary and innovative educational program that will contribute to improving community health in Europe.
There are many stakeholders involved in improving health literacy. One of the most crucial stakeholders among them is healthcare professionals, especially doctors. It is of critical importance for doctors to understand the significance of individuals'/society's health literacy level and apply communication and approach strategies that are suitable for this level for a country's health. This project aimed to strengthen the perspectives of future doctors, medical school students, on health literacy and health communication and provide them with pre-graduation education. The fundamental approach to achieving this goal was to integrate health literacy education into the medical school curriculum and develop an educational program that includes interactive methods. Therefore, the HELEM-EU project has been a project that aimed to develop a health literacy education program for medical education curricula, conduct pilot implementations, and evaluate them, with the goal of creating an evidence-based, standardized, effective, and efficient health literacy education program for use in Europe.
Health Literacy, refers to the ability of individuals to improve personal and societal health by changing lifestyles and living conditions, while also reaching the necessary level of knowledge, personal skills, and confidence to take action. Therefore, health literacy does not only encompass the skills of reading health brochures and making appointments but also aims to enhance the capacity to access health information, understand this information, and effectively apply it. Topics within the scope of health literacy include taking the correct dose of any medication, understanding the significance of test results, blood pressure and sugar measurements, as well as awareness of health risks associated with certain habits and maintaining a sense of health preservation. Worldwide, the issue of low health literacy is frequently discussed in the literature, regardless of the development levels of countries. In Europe, a study conducted in 2012 in eight countries determined the level of health literacy in the community to be 48%. In Turkey, a study conducted in 2017 found the health literacy level to be 68.9%. Therefore, numerous efforts are being made to enhance health literacy. However, these efforts often aim to increase the public's knowledge of health literacy. In addition to these efforts, healthcare providers also need to adopt an empowering approach to address this issue while providing healthcare services to the community.