HARC Conference 2022

Digital Health Literacy Intervention  in Context – Challenges, Standards, Best Practice and Measures

Diane Levin-Zamir

Orkan Okan

Gillian Rowlands

Stephan Van den Broucke

The importance of digital health literacy (DHL) for public health, healthcare, education and health policy is increasing and has been seen particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic. In this context, DHL has been defined as: “the ability to search for, access, understand, appraise, validate and apply online health information, the ability to formulate and express questions, opinion, thoughts or feelings when using digital devices, and the frequency with which people use different health resources from digital sources digital sources and resources such as online video consultations, digital personal health records, social media, health related apps, etc. for promoting health.” (M-POHL HLS Report, 2021). Recently measures have been established to assess DHL on the individual, organizational and population level. In spite of the escalation of DHL activity among a wide range of groups and contexts, some due to the challenges brought for during the COVID-19 pandemic, what is still lacking are specific guidelines for DHL intervention including standards and criteria for best practice.

Therefore, this workshop will focus on defining standards and criteria for successful DHL intervention and how the development and implementation processes and outcomes can be assessed and measured in different age groups (e.g. schoolchildren, patients) and settings (e.g. schools, health care facilities). More specifically, the workshop facilitators will 1. share experience with DHL interventions in diverse contexts and settings, and together with the workshop participants: 2. explore and propose standards and criteria and for DHL best practice, and 3. establish a set of measures for estimating and assessing DHL intervention diverse social and cultural contexts. 

This interactive session will include:

1. the presentation of several case studies from several countries that focus on DHL intervention, followed by
2. small group and plenary discussion and debate regarding standards/criteria for determining best practice in DHL intervention while also,
3. reflecting on measurement challenges and opportunities during the formative and implementation stages, while considering appropriate outcomes measures.