2022 Annual Report Health Literacy

Health Literacy UK (HLUK) was founded in March 2007 and was awarded Special Interest Group status by the Society for Academic Primary Care (SAPC) the same year. HLUK was launched with Prof Gill Rowlands as Chair 2007 – 2014; now Chaired by Dr Evelyn McElhinney (March 2021), taking over from Prof Joanne Protheroe 2014 - 2021. Since our inception we have become an active group continuing to deliver on our objectives and actively supporting the development of the research evidence and best practice base for Health Literacy (HL) in England and across the four countries of the UK. In this report we describe the activities of the group 2020 - 2021.

Health Literacy Group UK Steering Group members - representatives across the UK

•             Dr Evelyn McElhinney PhD: Chair (EM)

•             Anne McCusker: Treasurer (AmC)

•             Prof Gill Rowlands: Policy Lead (GR)

•             Prof Joanne Protheroe: Research Lead (JP)

•             Tania Cork (TC)

•             Dr Mike Oliver PhD (MO)

•             Mandy Wardle-McLeish (MWMC)

•             Jane Ha

The steering group meets 6 times a year. This has been via video conferencing

Updates from Chair on activities for 2022

This has been a busy year for HLUK.

Our webpage has been updated, we have the ability for people to sign up as members – this automatically sends an email to our GMAIL address, which is reviewed every Friday. We currently have 1189 members. We also have a slideshare and YouTube channel, which allows us to upload seminar recordings and embed these into our website.  This also allows analytics to be collected.

Main seminars –

May 2022 – several members presented at the IUHPE Conference

October 2022:  Health literacy UK – Health Literacy Month Seminar Series – 3 webinars now embedded in website (slides with recordings on Youtube)

November 2022 – Policy hybrid event – 90 attendees –in person and online. 1 day seminar with Keynote from Professor Don Nutbeam – All talks were recorded and available to participants for two weeks.  This has led to 14 people agreeing to join a Policy CoP.

All members have presented at a number of national and global conferences over the last year and have abstracts accepted for conferences in 2022.

*Future plans

Continue to contribute to policy, education, and research through UK and globally via health literacy groups. We will continue to develop and deliver our seminar programme, and plan to hold our next conference in Spring 2025 this will be a joint conference with European Health Literacy Association.