We work to increase health literacy

Our approach to health literacy aims to:

improve access to health information
increase the ability of individuals to use, engage with and participate in our health content, to increase understanding and to increase its usefulness
raise awareness of the wider determinants of health among individuals, educators and practitioners to provide an understanding of the context of their choices.

All these elements of health literacy are critical to our goal of empowering people through knowledge – enabling individuals to make informed decisions about their health, and providing health workers the knowledge and tools to support them, in difficult and often hostile contexts.

We aspire to better practice

We have endorsed and integrated the Principles for Digital Development – a set of living guidelines designed to help integrate best practices into technology-enabled programmes – into our work and are now Gold standard endorsers.
We are accredited as a trusted information creator under the PIF Tick accreditation scheme with approved processes that ensure high quality content.
We are signatories of the UK Patient Information Forum’s Health and Digital Literacy Charter, signalling our ongoing aspiration to make it easier for people to navigate, understand, and use information and services to take care of their health.
We have endorsed the Pleasure Project’s ‘Pleasure Principles’, and are committed to a sex-positive approach to sexual health and rights that prioritises personal agency, and is free of judgment. This leads to more effective interventions and better sexual health outcomes.

We are evidence-based and collaborative

We prioritise people-centred design principles , working with users to develop products that meet their needs and are relevant, credible and inclusive.

We use learning and evidence from health literacy, behaviour change and digital marketing research and practice to inform and improve our content and approach.

We work through partnerships – across government, academia, private sector and third sector – as the best way to create high quality, sustainable programmes.

We use our understanding of technology to prioritise inclusive digital approaches, and our knowledge of the context to create realistic solutions.

We strive to understand and learn from how our content, resources and platforms are being used; whether and how they are supporting intention, change and action; and how they could be iterated for greater impact.

Our approach will continue to evolve, guided by our own results and learning, and wider evidence from the sector and beyond.

Photo credit: Gulshan Khan/Avert/Ikusasa Lethu. Photos are used for illustrative purposes. They do not imply health status or behaviour.