Migrants and refugees’ children’s role in promoting the family health literacy in second language courses

Abstract

Abstract Background Recent research on health literacy (HL) stresses the importance of the social context for children's HL, especially among vulnerable groups such as migrants and refugees. However, reaching migrant is difficult, so experts recommend adult second language courses (SLC) as promising settings to promote HL of migrants and their families. Yet, empirical evidence of promoting family health literacy (FHL) in SLC is scarce. The project SCURA, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, therefore aimed at exploring how FHL is addressed in SCL and to develop an FHL promoting intervention. Methods We conducted a mixed-method study, including a scoping study on empirical evidence of HL in SLC (N = 17), analyses of international curricula (N = 22) and of German textbooks (N = 24), participant observation in two SLC (100 hours), expert interviews (N = 15) triangulated the findings and conceptualized an FHL intervention. Results Whereas health is a preferred topic in SLC because it is interesting, and engaging and included in the standard SLC curricula, FHL is rarely targeted and not defined. Qualitative data reveal a vast scope of FHL related occasions offering possibilities to improve parents' health knowledge, communication skills and health literacy. Based on the results, we developed and implemented a multi-modal diversity sensitive FHL program, integrated into SCL, that targets parents' and children's physical, mental and social health topics, promotes FHL, and empowers migrant families to make good health decisions within their new context. Conclusions Currently, standard SLC rarely target FHL in the curriculum, but FHL topics are informally discussed. Hence, training teachers to use the upcoming FHL topics to teach the second language is a win-win-solution for it achieves both aims: increasing HL and language skills.