Improving Organizational Health Literacy in Extracurricular Youth Work Settings

Abstract

Although most health literacy (HL) interventions in Europe focus on the enhancement of individual competences and primarily address health care, this article describes a novel approach to improving the HL friendliness of extracurricular youth work in Austria. Accordingly, the "Vienna Concept of Health-Literate Hospitals and Healthcare Organizations (V-HLO)" was transferred to extracurricular youth work for the first time. This article first gives a concise overview of the project, then outlines the interaction between the project development and the evaluation, and finally summarizes the main project outcomes and results. The project outcomes and the results indicate that the concept of organizational HL, in particular the V-HLO, could be transferred from the health care setting to the extracurricular youth work setting; yet data indicate that different priorities are relevant and different tools are needed. Although quality management is an important partner to implement the V-HLO in hospitals, more informal and flexible structures are required for an extracurricular youth work setting. The successful transfer of the V-HLO to the extracurricular youth work setting illustrates that the V-HLO has potential in varied settings beyond health care. [Health Literacy Research and Practice. 2017;1(4):e233-e238.].