Sustainable Development Goals
Depend on Health Literacy improvement The 9th Global Conference on Health
Promotion takes place in Shanghai November 21-24. The conference is expected to
endorse theShanghai Declaration on Health Promotion. The declaration establishes
health promotion, particularly health literacy improvement as essential in
development and implementation of theSustainable Development Goals
(SDG) for 2030. The SDGs replace the
Millennium Development Goals which expired in 2015. If endorsed by the conference, as expected, the declaration
will be proposed to the third United Nations General Assembly High-level
Meeting on Non-communicable Diseases (NCD) in 2018. The Shanghai Declaration on Health
Promotion is the second global call for action to “strengthen heath literacy”
worldwide; and thereby to improve health and well-being and empower women.
It builds on an earlier Shanghai
Declaration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2011. Both
declarations present health literacy improvement as a pragmatic intervention to
reduce NCD—now the leading causes of death worldwide, and a leading source of
health inequities and disparities. UN members that sign on to the
declaration will commit to develop national plans and funding for regular
health literacy surveys to build the evidence base and make global
comparisons. This population
approach is seen as part of a necessary “whole-of-government and
whole-of-society” commitment to health and sustainable development. Definition and measurement of health
literacy across cultures and health systems will be the major challenge,
particularly for the US which remains focused on individual patients’ reading
skills. Signers will further commit to make
healthcare institutions more understandable, friendly and people-centered by
setting standards for health literate organizations. The US has much contribute
in this regard with the National Action Plan to Improve Health Literacy and the Health Literate Care
Model. What’s
missing is the funding. The Shanghai Declaration on Health
Promotion prioritizes health literacy as “a critical entry point to make a
difference… through the settings of everyday life and people’s capacity to
increase control over their own health and its determinants.” Health literacy in everyday life and
health literacy as empowerment have been the focus of my research. While these
concepts are fundamental to health protection and promotion, and to prudent use
of services; they are outside the
dominant prospective on health literacy in the US. We each use our health literacy skills
in three domains: disease treatment and healthcare, disease prevention/health
protection, and health promotion. I urge the US delegation to sign on to the
new Shanghai Declaration. I urge all health literacy researchers and
practitioners to expand our thinking about health literacy by reading the
declaration and reflecting on what action you could take to strengthen health
literacy for health promotion? Read the declaration in English,
Chinese, French, Spanish or Russian here. World Bank. Empowerment. PovertyNet. http://go.worldbank.org/S9B3DNEZ00. Retrieved 6.15.16 Kickbush I, Pelikan JM, Apfel F, Tsouros AD (Eds.). Health Literacy: The Solid Facts. World Health Organization, Copenhagen; 2013. http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/190655/e96854.pdf?ua=1 Retrieved 10.4.16. |
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