IDEAHL - Best practices for Digital Health Literacy interventions, a review study

Background
Improving Digital Empowerment for Active Healthy Living (IDEAHL) is a HorizonEurope project focusing on
developing and testing digital health literacy (dHL) interventions, through the co-creation of a comprehensive EU dHL
Strategy. The strategy aims to empower EU citizens in using digital tools to improve health and well-being. The initial
phase comprised a literature review of health literacy (HL) and dHL interventions in EU and beyond.
Purpose
Reviewing key factors, drivers, barriers, and best practice in HL and dHL interventions at policy- organizationalgroup- and individual level.
Method
Ten electronic databases became the base for a literature search supplemented with grey literature in a participatory
scoping review process among IDEAHL´s 14 partners (10 EU Member States). Covidence was used for managing
references based on inclusion criteria that embrace key factors, (drivers, barriers, effectiveness, and best practice at
different levels) on HL and dHL interventions.
Findings
The review revealed that there were 5 intervention studies at political level, 21 at organizational level, 15 at group level
and 31 at the individual level.
Key factors in the identified interventions were training of healthcare professionals, patients, caregivers, or others in
addition to tailored communicative initiatives. Among interventions targeting adolescents, the dominant outcome was
mental HL, and only few interventions addressed dHL.
Conclusion
Among interventions targeting HL and dHL great diversity were found, still this review provides an overview of core
tendencies. More research is needed to determine best practices of improving dHL.
Key Words: Digital Health Literacy, HorizonEurope, Scoping revie