Month: January 2021

Supporting every school to become a foundation for healthy lives

Supporting every school to become a foundation for healthy lives

Article published in the Lancet on Friday 22 January 2021

This recent article[1] in the Lancet Child & Adolescent Health is both an advocacy tool and a roadmap for building bridges between education and health and enabling the development of intersectoral practices in schools.

Child and adolescent health is influenced by a complex set of cultural, environmental, social and economic factors. Schools, as an educational setting where children spend a large part of their daily lives, have an important influence on the health and wellbeing of students. The discussions about reopening schools during the COVID-19 pandemic have shown the interconnectedness of health and education inequalities.

The article takes stock of the available evidence on school health interventions and the conditions necessary for their effectiveness and sustainability. It calls for an educational look at health issues. It reminds us that to improve health and reduce inequalities, all pupils must attend school from an early age and for as long as possible, and that their success at school must be maximised. Coherence between policies, structures and systems, human resources and practices in each school is necessary to improve school and health outcomes. Finally, it shows that health professionals can be catalysts for structural change and act as vehicles for cross-sectoral implementation of reforms and innovations in school systems to promote the health of all students.

Read the article and the editorial of the Lancet

[1] Jourdan, D., Gray, N. J., Barry, M. M., Caffe, S., Cornu, C., Diagne, F., El Hage, F., Farmer, M. Y., Slade, S., Marmot, M., & Sawyer, S. M. (2021). Supporting every school to become a foundation for healthy lives. The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2352-4642(20)30316-3

Posted by Didier in News
Recording of regional workshop ‘School Health in Latin America: Intersectoral NCD Prevention and Management’

Recording of regional workshop ‘School Health in Latin America: Intersectoral NCD Prevention and Management’

On December 14 and 15, 2020, NCD Child, in partnership with the Healthy Latin America Coalition (CLAS) and the American Heart Association, hosted a two-day regional workshop entitled ‘School Health in Latin America: Intersectoral NCD Prevention and Management’ that focused on strengthening partnerships across the health and education sectors and promoting a whole-school approach in preventing and managing non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in the region, with a special focus on adopting school health strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Professor Didier Jourdan, holder of the UNESCO Chair and head of the WHO Collaborating Center in Global Health & Education, participated as a keynote speaker on day two of the workshop which focused on strategies for educational continuity and management of NCDs during the COVID-19 pandemic. You can see his presentation on the UNESCO Chair website.

Visit NCD Child’s YouTube channel to watch the full presentations for both days, available in English, Spanish and Portuguese.

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Webinar: Health literacy in schools: an education asset in the 21st century

Webinar: Health literacy in schools: an education asset in the 21st century

On 21 January 2021 from 14.00 – 15.00 CET, the interactive webinar “Health literacy in schools: an education asset in the 21st century” will take place. The webinar is part of the Global Health & Education webinar series and organised by the UNESCO Chair Global Health & Education in collaboration with Schools for Health in Europe Network Foundation (SHE). The webinar will be held in English.

The aim of this webinar is to discuss health literacy in the school context and the educational sector. Health literacy is a critical 21st century competence that enables children and adolescents to critically evaluate health information, make informed decisions about health, and inform their health behaviour. The development of health literacy begins as early as in childhood and schools represent the most promising setting to facilitate the enhancement of child and adolescent health literacy.

During this webinar the experts: Associated Professor Leena Paakkari, University of Jyväskylä, Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences, Finland, Doctor Orkan Okan, Bielefeld University, Faculty of Educational Science, Interdisciplinary Centre for Health Literacy Research, Germany, and Professor doctor Kevin Dadaczynski, Fulda University of Applied Science, Fulda Public Health Centre, Leuphana University Lueneburg, Germany, will address the following questions:

  1. What is health literacy and why do we need to address it in schools?
  2. Why should we incorporate health literacy into the school curriculum?
  3. How can we embed health literacy into school health promotion frameworks?

Link for the webinar: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83136909908

More information

Posted by Didier in News