Digital health literacy in schools: new tools, empirical findings and implications for interventions

Abstract

Abstract Children and youth are important populations to receive education and training on digital health literacy, while digital health literacy has recently increased attention as an important determinant of child and adolescent health. Albeit schools are the best equipped settings to enhance health-related competencies and digital literacy capacities of children and adolescents, the uptake of digital health literacy by European schools is still in its infancy and progresses somewhat slowly. Reasons are that digital health literacy is a relatively new topic in education, an overcrowded curriculum, lacking training opportunities for teachers on the subject, economic constraints and poor digital health policies for the education sector, and limited knowledge about the digital health literacy needs of schoolchildren, teachers, and schools, as well as missing evidence needed to inform these issues. A new project on digital health literacy in schools in Germany seeks out to close some of these gaps by conducting two large-scale surveys among secondary schoolchildren and teachers. New measurement tools have been developed and used to generate first time data on digital health literacy in schools, not only assessing personal capacities of schoolchildren and teachers but of learning opportunities and instructions concerning digital health literacy teaching and learning provided in schools. These findings will inform future tailored educational programs, public health interventions, and health and education policies in order to enable the uptake of digital health literacy in education, schools, and teacher training.