Organizers:

• Valia Kalaitzi, MSc, PhDc Maastricht University Faculty of Health, Medicine, and Life Sciences School for Public Health and Primary Care Department of International Health The Netherlands, Mendor Editions S.A., Managing Director, Athens, Greece
• Kristine Sørensen, PhD, MPH, Founding director, Global Health Literacy Academy.
• Despoina Paspala, MSc, PhDc, Health Visitor, Patras University, Department of Cultural Heritage Management and New Technologies
• Giorgos Mpardis, PhD Eng., Managing Director @ dga.gr

 

Short description:

Community-dwelling elderly with limited health literacy skills have been associated with poorer physical and mental health, linked to problems with the use of preventive medical care, delayed diagnoses, poorer understanding of medical conditions and adherence to medical instructions and inadequate health self-management skills. The social gradient described by financial deprivation, low social status, low education or old age has been identified as an important factor to limited health literacy level. An educational health platform, Alfavitos Live, has been developed aiming to provide health literacy training to Elderly Centers (ΚΑΠΗ) in Greece. Alfavitos Live study aims to measure the impact of improving the health literacy level to the health quality standards of elderly in respect of medical condition understanding, adherence to medical instructions, prevention, and health self-management. Alfavitos developed an online health literacy community with elderly audience via interactive, innovative technologies. The results of the bi-monthly pilot stage have been extremely encouraging.

 

Key words:

• health literacy
• elderly
• quality of life
• health self-management
• innovative technologies