EU GRUNDTVIG

Coordinator and project partner
Frauengesundheitszentrum, Women´s Health Center
Christine Hirtl, Sylvia Groth
Project partners
Careum, Zurich, Switzerland, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Rome, Italy, Komiteen for Sundhedsoplysning (Danish Agency for International Education), Copenhagen, Denmark

Recent initiatives of the European Parliament foster the importance of advancing health literacy in all member states. Health literacy and health education empower patients and citizens to fully participate in health care and to communicate on eye level with their health professionals. Health literacy plays a key role in overcoming health inequalities caused by social determinants of health.

This partnership fosters health literacy as an important part of adult and continuous education.

Four face to face meetings bring together staff members of adult education organizations, NGOs and public institutes from four European countries working on health literacy and health education: Austria, Italy, Denmark and Switzerland.

All participants of this partnership get involved through participatory planning of the project during the first meeting. The aim is to use the resources of all participants by distributing work packages such as giving presentations, organizing communication, taking over methodological parts and by sharing skills and experiences.

This learning partnership helps to raise knowledge and competencies on health literacy as a central issue in lifelong learning. It allows practitioners, researchers, advocacy groups to exchange and discuss their understanding of health literacy and health information and get to know how colleagues from across Europe approach training programs. Participants can exchange challenges and strategies advancing health literacy on national level with colleagues, compare approaches and find solutions.

The Partnership will provide valuable impulses for activities on the national levels. It strengthens long term partnerships and networks among European partners to build a critical mass of stakeholders advancing health literacy.

Careum, Zurich, Switzerland
Dr. Jörg Haslbeck, Hans Gut
www.careum.ch|
Careum is an independent Swiss Foundation located in Zurich. Its main objective is to promote education in the health care sector by providing support and inspiration for the systematic development and establishment of education and training in this area in the future. Since 2010, Careum aims, in cooperation with national and international partners, to strengthen patient education for the chronically ill and their significant others and to make it part of health care and training in the long term.
Careum will host a meeting and help in the dissemination of the programme outcomes and learning.

Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Rome, Italy
Dr. Maurella Della Seta, Prof. Enrico Garaci
www.iss.it|
The Istituto Superiore di Sanità is the leading technical and scientific body of the Italian National Health Service. Its activities include research, control, training and advising in public health. It also serves as a major national clearing-house for technical and scientific information on public health issues. The ISS Documentation Service has the task of retrieving  online biomedical, chemical and toxicological information. It is the National Reference Center for MEDLARS (PubMed) and organizes training courses on the scientific information resources available on the Web and on other electronic media, addressed to the National Health Service personnel and to patient associations. It develops and manages websites and databases.
In this Partnership ISS Documentation Service will coordinate and organize a workshop on health information and guidelines available on the Internet and help disseminating the results.

Komiteen for Sundhedsoplysning (The Danish Committee for Health Education), Copenhagen, Denmark
Ingrid Nilsson, Charan Nelander
www.sundhedsoplysning.dk|, www.patientuddannelse.info|
The Danish Committee for Health Education was founded in 1964 and is a non-profit non-governmental organization with close working relations with public authorities like the Ministry of Health, the National Board of Health and private organizations in the health field. The membership organizations are primarily professional associations in the health field and the associations of county councils and local authorities.
One of our main activities is developing and running health training programmes with the aim of giving people the skills to manage their health on a day to day basis. Programmes are delivered by trained volunteers most of whom have long term health conditions and disabilities themselves. We work across all social sectors and in close cooperation with the local communities. The Danish Committee for Health Education will write the final report and help in the dissemination of the programme outcomes and learning.

The Women’s Health Center is a nonprofit and non-governmental organization located in Graz, Austria. Since 1993 we call attention to a diverse range of pressing women’s health issues, especially those ignored or under-attended by health care providers and politics. Our mission is to empower women and girls in all stages of life and within the range of women’s health needs (individual level). We put women’s health on the political agenda through advocacy, education and lobbying for adequate health structures for women and girls and equal participation of women and men within health care and society (structural and political level). We especially focus on social determinants influencing health on a large scale such as education, living and work conditions, the role of women in society.
The Women’s Health Center is one of the few players having started activities in improving health literacy in Austria. It provides independent patient information, counseling and a 5-day Advanced Capacity Building Training Program for consumers, patients, counselors and self help group members in Austria.
The women's Health Center coordinates this project Health literacy fostering participation and improving health, hosts one meeting and evaluates the project. 

More information about the Women's Health Center in English|