Tackling skills gaps of health and social care professionals to promote health literacy of persons at risk of dementia

Health Literacy (HL) is defined by the WHO as “the cognitive and social skills which determine the motivation and ability of individuals to gain access to, understand and use information in ways which promote and maintain good health”. Poor HL has many negative consequences, ranging from negative health behavior to misuse of health care. The promotion of HL is a vital task of Health and Social Care (HSC) systems, thus, there are recommendations that HL should be prioritized and integrated into educational curricula of the training of HSC professionals to close the existing skills gap in this field. Also, dementia is stated as a growing public health problem and its risk reduction is one of the seven action areas in the WHO Global Action Plan on the Public Health Response to Dementia. Poor HL is a likely risk factor of dementia since Persons at Risk of Dementia (PaRD) with low HL level have been reported to have a significantly higher risk of dementia and faster decline in cognitive function. The Skills4HL project aimed at meeting the needs of Higher Education Institutions to reduce skills gaps of HSC professionals to promote HL capacity-building when supporting PaRD with the aim to deliver personalized and relevant interventions.

Due to the current relevance of HL in public health and its potential benefits for Persons at Risk of Dementia (PaRD) and dementia, ensuring the knowledge and skills of Health and Social Care (HSC) professionals regarding HL when supporting PaRD is crucial to provide tailored interventions aimed at reducing the impact of dementia. Thus, the primary objective of the Skills4HL project was to meet the needs of Higher Education Institutions (HEI) in training their future and current HSC professionals, through digital education technologies, to promote health literacy (HL) capacity-building when supporting PaRD to deliver relevant and personalized interventions. For that purpose, the following specific objectives were defined: 1.To improve the awareness regarding the knowledge, skills, and abilities for HL capacity of HCS professionals when supporting PaRD. 2.To strengthen the strategic and structured cooperation in HL education to develop a learning-outcome-oriented curriculum and educational contents in the HEIs’ context. 3.To increase the use of innovative and accessible digital technologies, to generate open education resources for skills development about HL of HSC professionals and build digital pedagogic capacities of lecturers.

The main outputs of the project are: * A competency profile including the specific knowledge, skills, attitudes and values as well as transversal skills and competences that are suggested to support health and social care professionals in their work to promote and / or improve health literacy when supporting people living with (risk of) dementia in Nordic countries. * A curriculum for four courses à 2,5 ECTS, 10 ECTS in total for health and social care professionals aiming to promote health literacy when supporting people living with (risk of) dementia. The xMOOC introduction course is also available online and possible for all to enroll. The course curriculum is based on the competence profile. * A Handbook of best practices (the SKILLS4HL handbook) for the four courses which contains information about the courses, teaching and learning activities, and assignments and examinations to enhance knowledge and skills in how to develop and create digital and online education both regarding the content and design/technical skills. * A seminar and webinar with focus on Health Literacy capacity building of skills among health and social care professionals is available online. The seminar and webinar introduced and discussed health literacy as a professional skill and how it can be implemented in higher education of health and social care professionals to improve quality of care. * Publications such as research articles, presentations, and online representation to sustain agenda-setting and knowledge-sharing on health literacy and dementia care.