Peer-reviewed article
Tool-HLCA: An intervention to promote the health literacy of school-aged children
Schulenkorf T, Okan O, Bauer U ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study describes the development of Tool-HLCA, a toolbox designed to teach school-aged children in grades 7 and 8 in Germany how to find, understand, evaluate and use health-related information, especially from digital sources. The toolbox integrates health literacy with the mandatory media literacy curriculum in North-Rhine-Westphalia schools, making it easier for teachers to use in classrooms. It includes exercises on evaluating health information across online platforms and identifying misinformation on topics like coronavirus, vaccination and nutrition.
Key points
- The toolbox addresses four core health literacy competencies: find, understand, appraise and use information
- It was developed by analysing commonalities between mandatory media literacy frameworks and health literacy requirements
- The intervention includes topic-specific tasks and evaluation criteria for identifying mis- and disinformation
- Integration with existing curriculum reduces implementation barriers for teachers
- The toolbox covers both general digital health literacy and specific health topics
Limitations
The document describes a toolbox under pilot testing but does not report on actual outcomes or effectiveness data. It cannot tell us whether children who use this toolbox actually improve their health literacy or make better decisions about health information.
Abstract
Abstract Background School-aged children are often exposed to health-related information from digital sources. However, there are no interventions in schools to help them deal with these appropriately. Installing health literacy in schools succeeds more easily if it can be linked to existing curricular requirements. This study aims to implement a toolbox to address (digital) health literacy of school-aged children (grades 7 and 8) in German secondary schools by combining existing media frameworks with health literacy. Methods Based on analysing a mandatory curriculum on media literacy in the state of North-Rhine-Westphalia in Germany and elaborating its commonalities with health literacy, we developed the toolbox for strengthening (digital) health literacy in school-aged children. Currently, the toolbox is being piloted in the school-setting in order to gain feedback from children and teachers. Results The mandatory media literacy framework for classroom teaching in German schools addresses the health literacy core competencies find, understand, appraise and use information. By using that framework and integrating health as a topic, this toolbox fits to the German core curriculum and will ensure that the toolbox is familiar and can be used with low thresholds by schoolteachers. The toolbox addresses digital health literacy including exercises to evaluate health-related information on different online platforms. It provides topic-specific tasks (e.g. coronavirus, vaccination, nutrition) and evaluation criteria for identifying mis- and disinformation. Conclusions The toolbox is an opportunity to enhancing (digital) health literacy in school-aged children by highlighting the intersections of the mandatory curriculum on media literacy and the core competencies of health literacy. In the long term, this kind of curriculum analysis serves as a methodological blueprint for educationalists to integrate health literacy into schools in many ways.
Findings the Hub has extracted
Each claim below is labelled by its type of design and links back to this report.
- Intervention
- Tool-HLCA toolbox integrating health literacy with mandatory media literacy curriculum, including exercises to evaluate health information and identify misinformation across digital platforms
- Population
- School-aged children in grades 7 and 8 in German secondary schools
Key finding
The toolbox addresses the four core health literacy competencies within the existing media literacy framework
T et al. · PubMed Central (PMC) · 1 Oct 2021