With more than 60 per cent of Tasmanians facing significant challenges with health literacy, the team behind the globally acclaimed HealthLit4kids program has launched new evidence strengthening calls to fund the initiative in primary schools statewide.
Health literacy – how we find, understand and use health and wellbeing information and services – remains a major challenge for Tasmanians. Improving health literacy from childhood will be key to progressing the state government’s newly released 20-Year Preventative Health Strategy.
Dr Rosie Nash, founding CEO of HealthLit4Everyone, is launching a new book today titled Global Perspective on Children’s Health and Literacy. Four years in the making, editors Dr Nash, Associate Professor Shandell Elmer and Dr Vaughan Cruickshank present insights from 61 health literacy experts across 17 countries, to highlight the key crossover between health, education and the community sectors in improving health literacy.
Dr Nash said the international research contained in the book backs HealthLit4Everyone’s submission to the 2025-26 Tasmanian budget, calling for funding to roll out HealthLit4Kids in primary schools statewide over the next three years. The program has been piloted in selected schools, with proven results in building the health literacy of staff, students and the wider school community.
“It’s not often as researchers we can say that we have a silver bullet, but through HealthLit4Kids and this new book we provide tangible solutions to some of the key focus areas of the government’s 20-year preventative health strategy,” Dr Nash said.
“When we started engaging with stakeholders to improve health literacy outcomes in Tasmania nine years ago, we kept getting passed around. People working in education would tell us it was a health issue, those in health would pass us onto the community sector. But a siloed approach doesn’t work.
“This book is the evidence and includes the practical recommendations needed by our leaders, our policy makers, our teachers, our health workers and our community to create intergenerational change.”
Tasmanian not-for-profit health insurer St Lukes has long advocated for a statewide rollout of HealthLit4Kids. CEO Paul Lupo says there’s overwhelming evidence that it improves students’ understanding of good health and healthy decisions.
“Starting young to improve the health literacy of every Tasmanian child is an absolute no-brainer. It will have an intergenerational impact on how we stay well and avoid ending up in hospital with preventable chronic conditions,” Mr Lupo said.
“Here, we have an internationally sought-after child health literacy program, developed right here in Tasmania: it’s baffling that the program is not already embedded in every school, given its proven efficacy and alignment with the government’s own 20-Year Preventative Health Strategy.
“Funding a cross-sectoral approach will be key to overcoming Tasmania’s challenges around health literacy, educational attainment, lifelong health outcomes and ultimately our state’s productivity – as well as St Lukes’ own vision of making Tasmania the healthiest island on the planet.”
St Lukes is also working with HealthLit4Everyone to develop HealthLit4Corporates, to improve the health literacy awareness of its own workforce. Following the pilot, the program would then be rolled out to other businesses.
Global Perspective on Children’s Health and Literacy will be launched in Hobart on November 18 with the support of HealthLit4Everyone, the University of Tasmania, St Lukes and the Winston Churchill Trust.
About HealthLit4Everyone
Healthlit4Everyone is a social enterprise which has grown out of research at the University of Tasmania, specifically research that led to the development of an evidence-based and co-designed professional development program for teachers in schools, HealthLit4Kids. The evaluation of the program is shared in 16 academic papers and is included in 3 World Health Organization Reports as an exemplar for preventative health strategies.
ENDS
Contact: Emily Woodgate, Timmins Ray Public Relations: 0412 828 802 | emily@timminsray.com.au