Examining three primary school curricula for their ability to promote health literacy development

Abstract

Primary schools have been identified as key settings in which to develop childhood health literacy (HL). However, little is known about how well existing curricula promote HL development amongst primary school aged children. The purpose of this paper was to analyse the health and physical education curricula of Australia, British Columbia (Canada), and New Zealand. Content analysis underpinned by Nutbeam’s Levels of HL (functional, interactive, critical) and Hjelm’s Dimensions of Health was used to analyse the three curricula. Similar trends were found between all three curricula, with the greatest emphasis placed on social health and physical health, and less emphasis on emotional and spiritual health. Consistent with other research, learning descriptors were found to most commonly relate to interactive HL, with critical HL occurring the least frequently. Findings from this study may guide the development of future iterations of each curriculum. Further, this paper provides an example of how other curricula can be analysed for their ability to comprehensively promote HL development.