To provide health literacy for students of Portuguese schools through the creation of an online platform to guide interactive sessions with the help of teachers.
The problem:
Health literacy video(Health Literacy Europe-context and importance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzMA9TlPJUk
In Portugal health literacy is problematic or inadequate in more than 60% of the population (Health Literacy Survey Europe2013/2014).The consequences of low levels of health literacy can be devastating to quality of life. Decisions taken in terms of health are deficient, living habits often harmful and the ability to cope with health problems and solving them is insufficient. In the case of young people this will influence their entire journey of life; the risks taken, their habits (healthy or otherwise), their school performance and long-term income, productivity and future socio-economic level. In addition to lost productivity (years of life lost and years lived with disease or disability), society bears the high cost of the treatment of diseases that can be prevented or greatly reduced with better health literacy.
With the SABER SAÚDE project we aim:
To create an online platform that will guide teachers and pupils through interactive learning sessions with debates, games, videos of sensitization for some subjects, challenges, key concepts, notion of impact and critical evaluation of the quality of information sources.
The sessions will be focused on the areas with more impact for society and quality of life (mental Health (pilot), substance abuse, food habits, exercise and sexuality) which are shown to have impact in the qualification of students to be prepared for the challenges of a society that is becoming increasingly more complex.
The sessions will be structured in accordance with models approved by national and international organizations in an inclusive and captivating way and in accordance with the opinion of specialists and its impact will be evaluated through surveys to the pupils and teachers.
With passing of the time we will see a change in the reality of health in the country, from the level of habits and risk behaviors, to resilience and illnesses related to the approached subjects.
The World Health Organization ,Health Literacy Europe and the Portuguese Government with the National Plan of Portuguese Health support this type of intervention in the schools. However tools adjusted for its application are not available on a large scale.
Ours project brings a tool that we consider essential to a wide spread quality health literacy program so that many young students increase their level of health literacy because the voluntary organizations, composed of medicine students won´t be able to reach a large population due to lack of resources. The teachers will be able to add dynamism to the session, already guided and structured in terms of content and activities without being responsible for its content and without a great deal of demanding work.
