As we write our editorial for a health literacy special issue in the midst of the international COVID-19 crisis, we take this opportunity to highlight the importance of individual, community, and population health literacy. We are not only in a “pandemic” but also an “infodemic”. Health literacy is more important than ever in the face of these global health threats, which have impacted outcomes across the levels of the socio-ecological model (SEM), including individual health behaviors, family relationships, organizational behavior, state policy-making, national mortality statistics, and the international economy in the span of weeks. Our special issue sought to pull together interdisciplinary threads guided by two principles. The first was defining health literacy as essential skills and situational resources needed for people to find, understand, evaluate, communicate, and use information and services in a variety of forms across various settings throughout their life course to promote health and wellbeing. The second was the idea that enhancing health literacy in populations and systems is critical to achieving health equity. In this time of public health need across traditional borders, the inter-sectoral and international perspectives of special issue articles are more urgent than ever. A greater understanding, appreciation, and application of health literacy can support policy action on multiple levels to address major public health challenges. Health literacy should be built deliberately as a population-level resource and community asset. We have summarized the set of articles in this special issue across the levels of the SEM, hoping their thoughtful considerations and interesting findings will help to support global health and wellness and inspire future research, policy, and practice in this global public health emergency and beyond.

In many countries, health literacy research, practice, and policy have been moving away from a focus only on medical care and health-care settings to a much broader conceptualization. In this broader perspective, health literacy can be obtained and used across many other settings (e.g., school, home, workplaces, government) towards achieving health and wellness goals across the life-course for individuals, families, and communities. The education sector is a critical domain towards these achievements and education for health literacy is a fundamental process and outcome. This can help towards important public health goals, including critical health literacy, as oriented not only towards individual actions, but also towards supporting effective social and political action. This Perspective Article describes the importance and utility of the education for health literacy perspective, which, follows a view that health literacy is a key outcome of health education from which improved population health, health promotion and disease prevention could be achieved across diverse contexts. We first describe different educational paradigms to address health literacy and clarify the education for health literacy perspective as a supportive, instructional and capacity-building global resource across the life-course. Then, using specific examples from Canada, America, and Germany, we provide a snapshot of the diverse ways in which the education for health literacy perspective can be found in national policies. These include broad national goals and standards (Germany and Canada) and major health care reform (America). We next consider the tensions and gaps that can arise in the translation and implementation of these policies relative to the ideal education for health literacy perspective, especially related to equity. These include the need for funding, goals of the educational system, and limited evaluation of policy in practice. Finally, we highlight strategic opportunities to achieve education for health literacy and equity especially offering examples from innovative practice in Canada across the lifespan.

Background: To date, few studies have been conducted to investigate the preparedness of health educators in Canadian school systems. Purpose: This study assessed practicing and preservice teachers' self-perceptions of preparedness to teach health education in British Columbia K-12 classrooms. It also investigated factors related to their preparedness. Methods: In 2006, 166 practicing teachers and 78 preservice teachers participated in a self-designed questionnaire. Results: Significant positive relationships were found between preservice teachers' knowledge, skill, preparedness, beliefs toward health education, and satisfaction with the provincial health curricula in assisting them to teach health education. Practicing teachers with more experiences in health education reported higher levels of knowledge, skill, and preparedness, as well as more positive beliefs toward health education, but their satisfaction with the curriculum was negatively associated with those variables. They also reported higher levels of skill and satisfaction and more positive beliefs than the preservice group. Discussion: In light of these results, further explorations are needed to understand current contexts within Canadian school health education. Translation to Health Education Practice: Findings support the need for training and implementation of health-related programs into the education system, particularly the deliberation on how to transform curricula into a more supportive vehicle for health education programming.

The Conceptual Model Map (CMM) presented here is intended to show the connections between different theories and constructs in the field of health and nutrition behavior (including literacy models, the knowledge–attitude(s)–practice(s) survey structure (KAP), behavior change theories, and Maslow’s pyramid of needs). The CMM can be used as a map to locate existing and future studies, to show their range of effect as well as their limitations. In this context, the CMM also reveals reasons for the attitude/intention–behavior gap.