Active and collective health awareness is the basis for a healthy global population. Educating and mobilizing society is crucial to successfully implementing community health measures and encouraging governments to take responsibility.
To monitor, assess, and improve the level of health literacy in populations worldwide, the World Health Organization has set up the WHO Collaborating Centre for Health Literacy at TUM which is based at the Department Health and Sport Sciences and is headed by Prof. Dr. Orkan Okan. The project will initially run for four years and is supported by WHO International, in particular by Dr. Faten Ben Abdelaziz (WHO Headquarters, Enhanced Wellbeing, Department of Health Promotion) and Dr. Anastasia Koylu (WHO Regional Office for Europe). Close collaboration is also planned with the Global Health Literacy Research Network (GLOBHL) and the International Health Literacy Association (IHLA).
There are over 800 such collaborating centres, including 27 in Germany. Munich already hosts the WHO Collaborating Centre for Public Health which is thematically closely related. The centres bundle research on relevant issues worldwide and develop solution strategies.
The head of the Assistant Professorship of Health Literacy is looking forward to future tasks and the diverse research approaches: "I am looking forward to setting up the Collaborating Centre at TUM and bringing together researchers from all over the world," says Prof. Okan. Promoting health literacy is an important goal of the WHO. To this end, gathering information to reveal health literacy needs is crucial. This is where the new centre at TUM comes into play: "We have been developing standardized surveys on health literacy for years. Now, the WHO has given us the honorable task of developing the global survey", explains the health scientist.
There is abundant information on how to get healthy and stay healthy, especially on the internet. But are people able to find and evaluate this information and apply it to their everyday lives? "Take vaccinations, for example," explains Prof. Okan. "Just knowing that vaccinations exist is not enough – I also need to know where I can get trustworthy information on the subject. And I must use this information to decide when and where to get vaccinated and which vaccinations to get." Such questions are described with the term health literacy.
Research shows that a significant proportion of the population has low health literacy, which leads to problems in dealing with health information, decision-making and the development of healthy behaviours. Initial pilot studies are underway in Liberia, Saudi Arabia, and China. Prof. Okan and his team will use the results to develop the final global survey over the next few years. "Once this is completed, each of the 194 WHO member states can use the format to collect local country data on population health literacy, which can be used for comparisons between countries and regions."
In addition to the "big" survey, the WHO Collaborating Centre will also cover an important sub-area of health literacy. "We are working on a second global survey to record health literacy in schools - of children and young people as well as teaching staff," says Prof. Okan. The researchers want to use the information obtained to develop teaching materials to improve health literacy. Other WHO collaborating centres have created similar materials for sex education, for example.
Dr. Rüdiger Krech, Director of Health Promotion at the WHO, emphasizes: "WHO Collaborating Centres are our closest partners with whom we work on global evidence on specific public health topics. I am therefore very pleased that the TUM School of Medicine and Health is now part of the circle of global excellence in the field of health literacy and look forward to a good collaboration."
To the homepage of the Assistant Professorship of Health Literacy
To the homepage of the "WHO Collaborating Centre for Health Literacy"
To the homepage of the World Health Organization
Contact:
Prof. Dr. Orkan Okan
Assistant Professorship of Health Literacy
Georg-Brauchle-Ring 60/62
80992 München
phone: 089 289 24986
e-mail: Orkan.Okan(at)tum.de / info.healthliteracy(at)tum.de
Text: Paul Hellmich (CCC)/Bastian Daneyko
Photos: WHO/private