Calgary charter on health literacy: Rationale and core principles for the development of health literacy curricula

The Centre for Literacy of Quebec co-hosted the Calgary Institute on Health Literacy Curricula in October 2008. The institute drew participants and presenters from Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. After three days of discussion, participants concluded that there is a need to identify core principles to underpin new and adapt existing health literacy curricula. There is a growing body of health literacy curricula that target five broad audiences health care professionals, university students, medical students, participants in ABE/ESOL/ESL programs, and the general public Existing health literacy curricula also target a very broad range of contexts and content from diabetes to the importance of health literacy and on to the use of the emergency room. (See http://www.advancinghealthliteracy.com/curricula.html.) This broad range of audiences and content areas is an inherent strength of health literacy, but also contributes to a potential lack of coordination, understanding, and comparability across efforts to advance health literacy. The Calgary Charter on Health Literacy is the outcome of a one-year long participatory effort to identify core principles to underpin new and adapt existing health literacy curricula. Health Literacy Missouri has recently adopted this work and the Public Health Agency of Canada has cited this in a recent call for health literacy demonstration projects across Canada. We encourage all individuals building or evaluating health literacy curricula to incorporate the principles into their work and join the growing number of signatories to the Calgary Charter on Health Literacy.