Session Information
08 SES 07, Health Literacy: Conceptual, Empirical and Ethical Reflections
Paper Session
Contribution
The development of health literacy of the population has been named as a key public health priority in Europe and beyond. Favorable consequences of good health literacy have been found on health and health behaviour at the individual level (Berkman et al., 2011), but also on economic issues at the societal level (Howard et al., 2005). The improvement of health literacy of the population has been included as a goal in many policy papers in various countries, but also in several global policy reports (e.g. Kickbusch et al., 2013). Thus, an intention to influence individuals’ health literacy has been legitimized. Similarly, an extensive amount of efforts have been put on measuring health literacy to inform politicians about the current state of health literacy in various population groups. Though there is no doubt a need to support people’s competence to promote and maintain health (i.e. health literacy; Sørensen et al., 2012), it seems that too few are the discussions about the ethical justifications that any intention or action related to development of health literacy may involve.
Children’s health literacy has been raised as an important factor in an intention to promote health and wellbeing of the population, and a school as a vital arena for developing such a competence (Kickbusch, 2008). There is an increase in the number of interventions, measurements and research carried out among the pupils, but lack of papers that focus on pondering what may be the ethical aspects that the promotion of health literacy encompasses. There are many reasons to suggests that working with pupils and their health literacy involve ethical issues. First of all, teaching in general is an ethically-loaded profession (Benade, 2008; Campbell, 2008), and teaching of health issues does add its own ethical characteristics that should be recognized (Paakkari & Välimaa, 2013). Secondly, working with pupils and an intention to influence them at ages when they are easy to be influenced certainly include ethical tensions (Räsänen, 2000; cf. WHO 1999). Thirdly, ethical tensions have been recognized to be involved in all health promotion and health education practices (e.g. Green & Tones, 2010; Tannahill, 2008).
The aim of this paper is to raise up and discuss some relevant ethical aspects that the development of pupils’ health literacy in schools involve. It will be done by asking why do we intent to develop health literacy of the pupils, and what are we focusing on when we are developing health literacy.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Benade, L. (2008a). Enterprise in the New Zealand curriculum and its challenge to ethical teacher professionality. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 33(2), 85-96. Berkman, N. D., Sheridan, S. L., Donahue, K. E., Halpern, D. J., & Crotty, K. (2011). Low health literacy and health outcomes: an updated systematic review. Annals of Internal Medicine, 155(2), 97—107. Campbell, E. (2008). The ethics of teaching as a moral profession. Curriculum Inquiry, 38(4), 357-385. Howard, D. H., Gazmararian, J., & Parker, R. M. (2005). The impact of low health literacy on the medical costs of medicare managed care enrollees. The American Journal of Medicine, 118(4), 371—377. Kickbusch, I. (2008). Health literacy: an essential skill for the twenty-first century. Health Education, 108(2), 101-104. Kickbusch, l., Pelikan, J.M., Apfel, F., & Tsouros, A.D. (2013). Health literacy: The solid facts. Copenhagen: World Health Organization. Paakkari, L., & Välimaa, R. (2013). Ethical issues in the teaching and learning of health topics in schools: The conceptions of teacher trainees. Teaching and Teacher Education, 34, 66-76. Räsänen, R. (2000). Teachers’ ethics, teacher education and changing horizons. In V. Sunnari, & R. Räsänen (Eds.), Ethical challenges for teacher education and teaching - Special focus on gender and multicultural issues (pp. 168-178). Faculty of education, University of Jyväskylä. Sorensen, K., Van den Broucke, S., Fullam, J., Doyle, G., Pelikan, J., Slonska, Z., & Brand, H. (2012). Health literacy and public health: a systematic review and integration of definitions and models. BMC Public Health, 12(1), 80. Tannahill, A. (2008). Beyond evidence—to ethics: a decision-making framework for health promotion, public health and health improvement†. Health Promotion International, 23(4), 380-390. Tones, K., & Green, J. (2004). Health promotion: planning and strategies (2nd ed.). London: Sage. World Health Organization. (1999). Improving health through schools: national and international strategies. Geneva: WHO Information Series on School Health.
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