2nd European Health Literacy Conference

Health Literacy Europe (related to the HLS-EU Consortium and managing the European Health Literacy Conference series) is an interesting group to follow for those interested in the conceptualization and measurement of health literacy. They lead a vast European project to develop a better understanding of one’s capacity to take care of their health in different cultural and social contexts.

While most medical studies on health literacy tend to focus on basic skills – such as reading and recognizing medical terminology, studies presented by members of the European consortium argue that a wider understanding of health literacy is necessary to effectively use it in public health. Arguably, this perspective seems more difficult to articulate in a logic of measurement and testing, which may limit its adoption in the short term. As illustrated in several articles in 2012, there is a strong debate on how we conceptualize health literacy.

• Should health literacy concentrate on a basic but universal set of skills necessary to navigate health care?
• Or should it include other variables such as motivation, knowledge, or social support as being integral to the health literacy concept?

Those are the kind of questions that would be interesting to debate in the
healthliteracy.info public forum.

The 2nd European Health Literacy Conference is taking place on April 10-11, 2014 in Aarhus, Denmark. The choice of speakers and the different activities enlisted are exceptional. Most of the speakers were strongly involved in the WHO work on health literacy in 1998-2008 and in the European research effort taking place since the “Together for Health 2008-2013” report produced by the European Commission in 2007. Among them, Ilona Kickbusch and Don Nutbeam are key figures in the first conceptual work done on health literacy. Nutbeam’s article (2000) on Health literacy as a public health goal is a good first read to get to know the public health issue around health literacy.

At the conference, I will present “Health literacy on the public agenda: exploring the rise of a social issue through a public policy approach“, based on my Master’s thesis work. I am curious to see how the approach from social sciences / political studies used in my research will be received, as it is based on quite different postulates than the ones usually found in public health and epidemiology.

Please note that the above logos are the property of the European Health Literacy Conference Organizing Committee and of Health Literacy Europe.