Promotion of Elementary School Students’ Health Literacy

Elke Knisel, Helge Rupprich, Annika Wunram, Markus Bremer and Christiane Desaive
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Elke Knisel: Department of Sports Science, Faculty of Humanities, Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg, 39106 Magdeburg, Germany
Helge Rupprich: Faculty of Social Sciences, Media, and Sports, Institute of Sport Science, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, 55128 Mainz, Germany
Annika Wunram: Department of Sports Science, Faculty of Humanities, Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg, 39106 Magdeburg, Germany
Markus Bremer: Department of Sports Science, Faculty of Humanities, Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg, 39106 Magdeburg, Germany
Christiane Desaive: Department of Sports Science, Faculty of Humanities, Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg, 39106 Magdeburg, Germany

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 24, 1-13

Abstract: Health literacy is an important outcome of the discussion of school-related health education and health promotion in the 21st century. Although the improvement of health literacy at an early age is increasingly recognized and few interventions show the development of children´s health literacy, still there is little research in this area. The purpose of the study was to examine the enhancement of health literacy among children in a physical activity-based program at elementary school. In total, 137 students aged 6–12 years participated in the program, which included health knowledge transfer in child-appropriate games and exercises. Participants´ health literacy was assessed using the HLS-Child-Q15-DE at the beginning and the end of the program. The instrument measures the access, understanding, appraisal and application of health-related information on a four-point Likert-type scale. As expected, the Wilcoxon signed-rank test revealed significant increases in self-reported health literacy over time. The results show that the degree of change in health literacy was not associated with gender or age. The results suggest that the physical activity-based program has the potential to improve elementary school children´s health literacy, even though in a single group pilot study.

Keywords: health literacy; physical activity; children; elementary school (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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