30 JUNE 2022

Azerbaijan joined the M-POHL-HLS cross-country network meeting studying the state of health literacy in Europe

Azerbaijan joined the M-POHL-HLS (Health Literacy Survey Network) international network meeting, which studies the state of health literacy in European countries. For the first time, the Public Health and Reforms Center of the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Azerbaijan participated in the annual meeting of this network.

During the COVID pandemic, most people found it difficult to access correct information, and on the other hand, social media posed a higher risk than traditional media in terms of the faster spread of false messages and misinformation.

At the meeting, it was once again emphasized that increasing health literacy is now considered very important to prepare people and society for emergency situations such as during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was noted that the importance of medical literacy was underestimated during the COVID-19 pandemic. At the beginning of the pandemic, the Public Health and Reforms Center (PHRC) of the Ministry of Health conducted a 6-stage survey to study the attitude of the population to the COVID-19 pandemic. The results of the survey revealed that the awareness level of the population is not sufficient to understand and analyze the information. Therefore, most of participants did not want to be vaccinated, follow safety rules and lead a healthy lifestyle during the pandemic.

A recent European study on defining of health literacy found that almost half of adults in eight European countries suffer from a lack of health literacy, which has a negative impact on their health.

Taking into account the above mentioned, last year PHRC conducted a study in our country that determined the health literacy of the Azerbaijan population based on the WHO methodology, and its results will be presented soon to the general public.

Thus, Azerbaijan has already become an active member of the M-POHL-HLS-19 initiative.

PHRC is also among the European countries conducting study on obesity in children (COSI), behavior of school-age children (HBSC) and risk factors (STEPS).