The Association Between Health Promoting School Awards Level and Health Literacy Of Elementary Schools' Students in Taiwan

Fu-Li Chen ； Ting-Ya Kuo ； Chao-Chun Wu ； Shu-Li Chia

《The Proceedings of the 8th AHLA International Conference: Health Literacy in Social Resilience》 2022 (2022/12) Pp. 128-129

https://doi.org/10.30181/AHLA.202210.0083

摘要

INTRODUCTION: Health Promoting School (HPS) is an important health policy in Taiwan. While building a health promoting school program, we expect that students’ health lifestyle is to be promoted. Health literacy refers to individuals’ knowledge and competencies to take responsibility for their own health. Low health literacy has a negative impact on individual health. Health Promoting School (HPS) is a key intervention strategy to strengthen health resources for promoting school students’ health literacy.
OBJECTIVES: From 2012 to the present, Taiwan Health Promotion Administration (HPA) has established HPS accreditation scheme to conduct the process performance from six key areas of HPS standards. The aim of the study is to examine the association between HPS awards level and elementary school students’ health literacy.
METHODS: The participants were 46 elementary schools participating in a HPS Accreditation Program, supported by HPA in 2019. A total of 2325 elementary school students, 552 teachers and 46 principals completed self-reported questionnaires, and all responses were anonymous. The measuring variables included socio-demographic variables (gender, education level of parents, socio-economic level of school area), students’ health literacy as the dependent variable, and the HPS awards level as the independent variable. We also measured the HPS process performance which included teachers’ HPS-related training hours, teacher ownership in HPS, school supported environment, collaboration with parents, community collaboration. Students’ health literacy was divided into low score of health literacy (below median) and high score of health literacy (above median). Logistic regression was conducti by socio-demographic variables and HPS awards level. ANOVA and Chi-square analysis were used to test for differences among different awards level.
RESULTS: After controlling for socio-demographic variables, those schools achieving gold award (OR=2.66; 95% CI=1.71-4.12) and silver award levels (OR=1.65; 95% CI=1.31-2.08) had better student’ health literacy than bronze award schools. Furthermore, comparing HPS process performance among different awards level, the results found that teachers’ HPS-related training hours and teacher ownership in HPS were significantly higher in gold award schools than in silver award schools, and silver award-rated schools were higher than bronze award schools. Collaboration with parents and school supported environment were significantly better in gold award and silver award schools than bronze award schools.
CONCLUSION: The study reveals that there is a significant correlation between HPS award level and students’ health literacy. According to the results, it is proposed to encourage schools using HPS key strategies for promoting students’ health literacy.