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Health Literacy Action Plan: the Portuguese Implementation


 
 
 Noncommunicable diseases represent a significant burden in terms of mortality and years lived with disability within the Portuguese population. This burden can be prevented though the adoption of healthy lifestyles, making health literacy (HL) an important factor in this scope. In order to minimise the impact of NCDs, it is important to implement extensive and effective interventions for disease management. In view of this situation, the Directorate-General of Health (DGS) developed a National HL Action Plan to promote HL and design new opportunities to engage the population.
 
 
 
 Recognising the importance of HL, in 2017, the DGS created the Division of Literacy, Health and Well-being. With this in mind, and with an intersectoral group of experts, this division defined the national policy for HL. The action plan was developed based on international best practices for the definition and implementation of actions to promote HL, taking into account that these actions should explore different approaches such as life-cycle and stage of development, taking advantage of all the opportunities to promote HL and self-care. Thus, three main goals were defined: Promote the adoption of healthy lifestyles; promote the proper use of the health system; promote well-being in chronic illness; promote knowledge and research.
 
 
 
 The implementation of the activities has been carried out with the citizens and multiple stakeholders in order to achieve a sustainable growth of the HL in all levels. This, in turn, directly contributes to an informed self-management of health for the improvement of the health levels of the Portuguese population.
 
 
 
 The HL Action Plan is still in effect and the products developed in articulation with other sectors has been shown to be central for achieving the goals defined. Hopefully the impact of this action plan will be reflected in upcoming literacy assessments and allow the benchmarking with other stakeholders.
