HealthLit4Kids: Building Health Literacy From the School Ground Up

This chapter describes the rationale and methodology that underpins a multicomponent health literacy program for schools which aims to raise awareness of and develop health literacy among teachers, children and their communities. This program considers the health literacy of the individual, the health literacy responsiveness of the school and the needs of the local community. This is important as the complex and multifactorial nature of health literacy requires a whole of community response for sustained improvements. Consistent with the complex nature of health literacy, HealthLit4Kids is informed by a pragmatist worldview and employs a sequential mixed methods approach. A program logic model and nine discrete research questions were used to determine if health literacy can be taught and developed in the primary school context. Data were obtained pre and post the program from multiple sources: teacher health literacy knowledge, skills and experience; HeLLoTas health literacy responsiveness of the school environment; focus groups (parents, teachers); teacher reflections; workshop data and evaluations; and student health literacy artefacts (creative pieces) and their descriptions. Our program, HealthLit4Kids, builds health literacy from within the school ground in such a way that its ripple effects reach out widely into the local community.