Basics of Health Literacy: A K-12 Community Partnership

Developing a Replicable Model for Health Literacy to Promote Positive Youth Development is a year-long, school-based, in-class, student-centered, experiential, and technology-driven health promotion and disease prevention program being implemented with 9th and 10th graders as well as 3rd, 4th 5th graders at the participating Pittsburgh public inner city schools to create health literate k-12 public school students who are able to access, navigate, obtain and understand health information and use it to make informed decisions about their health. Students at the participating schools are predominantly African Americans. Program's overarching goals are to: 1 Use MedlinePlus, other National Library of Medicine on-line resources, and additional reputable online health information to teach students different ways to access and navigate trusted and reliable health information and used to make informed decisions about their health; 2 Search for information about top common diseases that affect minority populations generally and in Pittsburgh/Allegheny County in particular; 3 Equip students with academic and life skills needed to succeed in school and beyond by increasing their informed decision making capabilities; 4 Empower students as agents of change in their communities by facilitating them to apply knowledge gained to plan, develop and conduct community service learning projects framed using social determinants of health, health disparities, Healthy People 2020 to promote health equity; 5 Expose students to careers in the health sciences; and 6 Improve the pilot tested health literacy toolkit. Approximately 500 students and 10 teachers are involved and over 40 sessions offered during the school year.