Health Literacy (HLS-EU)
The European Health Literacy Survey (HLS-EU)
The European Health Literacy Project (HLS-EU) has successfully been completed in the period 2009-2012. It was hosted Maastricht University and aimed to help establish the issue of health literacy in Europe.
The HLS-EU project has fulfilled its obligations in terms of:
- establishing a European Health Literacy Network;
- developing a model instrument for measuring health literacy in populations in Europe;
- generating first-time data on health literacy in European countries, providing indicators for national and EU monitoring;
- making a comparative assessment of health literacy in European countries;
- creating National Advisory Bodies in countries participating in the survey and documenting different valorization strategies following national structures and priorities.
Partners
The HLS-EU project was carried out in cooperation with partners in nine European countries:
- Maastricht University, the Netherlands
- National School of Public Health, Greece
- University College of Dublin, National University of Ireland
- Ludwig Boltzmann Gesellschaft GmbH, Austria
- Instytut Kardiologii, Poland
- University of Murcia, Spain
- Medical University - Sofia, Bulgaria
- National Institute of Public Health and the Environment, The Netherlands
- National Centre of Health, Nord-Rhine West-Phalia, Germany
Furthermore have several organisations and institutes supported the project as collaborating partners:
- Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia
- Health Literacy Missouri
- ECDC, Stockholm, Sweden
- MSD Europe; MSD Ireland and Switzerland
- Public Health Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia
- National School of Public Health, Lisboa, Portugal
- Center for Health Policies and Services, Bucharest, Bulgaria
- European Patient's Forum, Brussels, Belgium
- Instituto di Ricerche Farmacologieche Mario Negri, Milan, Italy
- University Hospital of North Norway, Tromsoe, Norway
- University of Adelaide, Australia
- Ministry of Health and Children, Dublin, Ireland
- National Consumers Council, United Kingdom
- Institute of Public Health in Cracow, Poland
The HLS-EU project received funding from the European Union from the framework of the Public Health Programme (Grant 2007-113).
The executive summary of the final report to the European Commission is available here: Final_report_-_Executive_summary_of_HLS-EU.pdf
More information
Project coordinator Kristine Sorensen
Department of International Health
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences
Maastricht University
Email: k.sorensen@maastrichtuniversity.nl
