6533b82afe1ef96bd128bfd3

RESEARCH PRODUCT

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subject

Medical education030505 public healthHealth Toxicology and Mutagenesismedia_common.quotation_subjectPublic Health Environmental and Occupational HealthPsychological interventionPhysical activityHealth literacyTest (assessment)03 medical and health sciences0302 clinical medicinePromotion (rank)Health promotionScale (social sciences)Health education030212 general & internal medicine0305 other medical sciencePsychologymedia_common

description

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.