AG Health Literacy

Initial empirical data from Germany show that the health competence of many people is insufficient or problematic. Thus, on the one hand, the institutions of the health care system such as hospitals or doctors' practices face the challenge of adapting to these difficulties. On the other hand, it is necessary to define the strengthening of health literacy as a task of the institutions and health professions.
The Health Literacy Working Group of the DNVF was founded at the German Conference on Health Services Research 2014 in Düsseldorf. The WG has set itself the goal to network and promote care-related health competence research in Germany in order to contribute to the development of care-related and political solutions. The working group pursues the following sub-goals:

• Networking of national and international scientists and institutions that conduct research in the field of health literacy
• Organization of workshops
• Promotion of training and promotion of young scientists in the field of health competence research
• Further development of the theoretical concept and methods of health literacy research
• Further development of instruments for health literacy surveys
• Dissemination of relevant research results and transfer of important results into the health policy discussion through statements, conference contributions and specialist publications

Work priorities (2020/2021):

One focus of the WG's activities in 2020 was the finalization and publication of the first part of the memorandum on health literacy (Ernstmann et al, 2020). After the successful publication of the first part, the members of the WG focused on the development of the second part of the memorandum entitled "Deutsches Netzwerk Versorgungsforschung (DNVF) - Memorandum Gesundheitskompetenz Teil II: Operationalisierung und Messung von Gesundheitskompetenz aus Sicht der Versorgungsforschung". First, a steering group was established to accompany the process. In the steering group, the topics and the structure of the memorandum as well as the group of authors were determined. In the course of the writing process, additional external experts on health literacy were recruited as authors. The second part of the memorandum is dedicated to the operationalization and measurement of individual and organizational health literacy in the context of health services research. The second part of the memorandum was finalized 2021 by the author and steering group, prepared for comment by DNVF members and submitted to "Das Gesundheitswesen" at the end of 2021.

With both parts of the memorandum being developed and agreed upon, recommendations for addressing health literacy issues in health services research studies are now available. Considering this, the module "Measurement of Health Literacy" was developed for the DNVF-Spring School under the leadership of Prof. Dr. Eva Bitzer in order to establish the elaborated standards in health services research practice.

Overview of activities 2020/2021:

Publications

Ernstmann, N., Bauer, U., Berens, E.-M., Bitzer, E.M., Bollweg, T.M., Danner, M., Dehn-Hindenberg, A., Dierks, M.L., Farin-Glattacker E., Grobosch, S., Haarig, F., Halbach, S., Hollederer, A., Icks, A., Kowalski, C., Kramer, U., Neugebauer, E., Okan, O., Pelikan, J., Pfaff, H., Sautermeister, J., Schaeffer, D., Schang, L,, Schulte, H., Siegel, A., Sundmacher, L., Vogt, D., Vollmar, H.C., Stock, S. (2020). DNVF Memorandum Health Literacy (Part 1) – Background, Relevance, Research Topics and Questions in Health Services Research: Short Version. Das Gesundheitswesen, 82, 1-7: DOI: 10.1055/a-1191-3401.

Ernstmann, N., Bauer, U., Berens, E.-M., Bitzer, E.M., Bollweg, T.M., Danner, M., Dehn-Hindenberg, A., Dierks, M.L., Farin-Glattacker E., Grobosch, S., Haarig, F., Halbach, S., Hollederer, A., Icks, A., Kowalski, C., Kramer, U., Neugebauer, E., Okan, O., Pelikan, J., Pfaff, H., Sautermeister, J., Schaeffer, D., Schang, L,, Schulte, H., Siegel, A., Sundmacher, L., Vogt, D., Vollmar, H.C., Stock, S. (2020). DNVF Memorandum Health Literacy (Part 1) – Background, Relevance, Research Topics and Questions in Health Services Research. Das Gesundheitswesen. DOI: 10.1055/a-1191-3689

Stock, S; Isselhard, A; Jünger, S; Peters, S; Schneider; G; Haarig, F; Halbach, S; Okan, O; Fischer, F; Bollweg, TM; Bauer, U; Schaeffer, D; Vogt, D; Berens, EM; Ernstmann, N; Bitzer, EM. DNVF Memorandum Health Literacy (Part 2) – Operationalisation and Measuring of Health Literacy from a Health Services Research Perspective. Das Gesundheitswesen 2022; 84(04): e26-e41. DOI: 10.1055/a-1807-0853

June 2020

Over the past two years, WG members focused on developing a memorandum on health literacy. The first part of the memorandum is devoted to defining the subject matter and issues in health literacy research related to health care. The second part addresses the operationalization and measurement of individual and organizational health literacy. The first part of the memorandum was finalized by the authors and steering group at the end of 2019 and published in "Das Gesundheitswesen" in July 2020.

September 2019

At Hannover Medical School, the PhD program "Chronic Diseases and Health Literacy (ChEG)" will start in February 2020 under the direction of Prof. Marie-Luise Dierks. The deadline for applications is 15.10.2019. Here you can find the flyer.

August 2019

The Health Literacy WG, in cooperation with the German Health Literacy Network (dngk), submitted a statement on the new working definition from the US Department of Health and Human Services on health literacy. Click here for the definition. The brief statement can be found here.

July 2019

Members of the Health Literacy WG in cooperation with the German Network Health Literacy and other external experts wrote the first draft of the "Memorandum Health Literacy Part I: Background, Relevance, Subject and Issues in Health Services Research". This draft was sent to all members of the DNVF for comments. The deadline for comments is 9/9/2019.

August 2017

Currently, the Health Literacy WG is working with a number of DNVF member organizations and personal members to produce two memoranda on health literacy. The goal is to add a health care perspective to current health and education policy activities and initiatives to promote health literacy.

To this end, the memoranda are primarily addressed to researchers. The aim is to provide them with an overview of the importance and measurement of health literacy in health services research studies, so that they can consider it with appropriate questions and methods in research projects.

Interested parties who are already interested in the contents or would like to contribute before the publication of the memoranda are welcome to contact the spokespersons of the WG at any time.

July 2015

Sibel Altin and colleagues from our WG have recently published a review paper on measuring cancer-specific health literacy: click here to access the article.

April 2015

Currently, another original paper from our members on health literacy has been published. It is a validation of a scale for measuring organizational health literacy in care settings by Christoph Kowalski and colleagues. Click here to access the article.

December 2014

We would like to draw attention to a recently published systematic review paper on health literacy instruments by Sibel Altin and colleagues. Click here to access the article.

June 2014

The WG was established in June 2014 with 18 members who work in various clinical and health science fields such as health economics, public health, medical sociology, medical informatics, and sports science. Currently, the WG is compiling the expertise and research focus of its members in order to plan further activities such as congress workshops or educational seminars based on this.

2022

In the context of the DNVF Spring School 2022, the module "Measurement of Health Literacy" was offered for the first time by Prof. Dr. Eva Bitzer and Johanna Lubasch. Furthermore, the WG plans continuing networking, especially with the WG Health Services Research of the German Society for Medical Sociology and the WG Organizational health services research of the DNVF, in order to jointly advance the topic of organizational health literacy in particular. This collaboration is expected to result in a joint discussion paper on organizational health literacy.

Ernstmann, N., Bauer, U., Berens, E.-M., Bitzer, E.M., Bollweg, T.M., Danner, M., Dehn-Hindenberg, A., Dierks, M.L., Farin-Glattacker E., Grobosch, S., Haarig, F., Halbach, S., Hollederer, A., Icks, A., Kowalski, C., Kramer, U., Neugebauer, E., Okan, O., Pelikan, J., Pfaff, H., Sautermeister, J., Schaeffer, D., Schang, L,, Schulte, H., Siegel, A., Sundmacher, L., Vogt, D., Vollmar, H.C., Stock, S. (2020). DNVF Memorandum Health Literacy (Part 1) – Background, Relevance, Research Topics and Questions in Health Services Research: Short Version. Das Gesundheitswesen, 82, 1-7: DOI: 10.1055/a-1191-3401.

Ernstmann, N., Bauer, U., Berens, E.-M., Bitzer, E.M., Bollweg, T.M., Danner, M., Dehn-Hindenberg, A., Dierks, M.L., Farin-Glattacker E., Grobosch, S., Haarig, F., Halbach, S., Hollederer, A., Icks, A., Kowalski, C., Kramer, U., Neugebauer, E., Okan, O., Pelikan, J., Pfaff, H., Sautermeister, J., Schaeffer, D., Schang, L,, Schulte, H., Siegel, A., Sundmacher, L., Vogt, D., Vollmar, H.C., Stock, S. (2020). DNVF Memorandum Health Literacy (Part 1) – Background, Relevance, Research Topics and Questions in Health Services Research. Das Gesundheitswesen. DOI: 10.1055/a-1191-3689.

Stock, S; Isselhard, A; Jünger, S; Peters, S; Schneider; G; Haarig, F; Halbach, S; Okan, O; Fischer, F; Bollweg, TM; Bauer, U; Schaeffer, D; Vogt, D; Berens, EM; Ernstmann, N; Bitzer, EM. DNVF Memorandum Health Literacy (Part 2) – Operationalisation and Measuring of Health Literacy from a Health Services Research Perspective. Das Gesundheitswesen 2022; 84(04): e26-e41. DOI: 10.1055/a-1807-0853.