In recent years, the health of the population has improved significantly; however, young people require special attention regarding the determinants of health-related lifestyles.

Scientific evidence on health promotion in schools, innovation, and the need to refocus action on results supports developing more appropriate interventions for young people.

In addition to empowering people and communities to act, it involves recognizing their skills and potential and facilitating their choices. With this broad vision, the project “Your PEL To Promote and Empower for Literacy in Health among young people” was created to help this generation achieve their full health potential. It takes a life-cycle approach, focusing on youth seeking a healthy future, and covers three areas: food, harmful consumption, and sexuality.

The objectives are to develop an impact assessment tool for health education programs in schools on food, harmful consumption, and sexuality in the 3rd cycle of basic education, and to monitor the determinants of health and the effectiveness of the strategies developed. It is a multi-region project aligned with the national smart specialization strategy, a partnership between IPSantarém (ESSS and ESTG), IPLeiria ESSL and IPViseu ESSV, and the school groups of Chamusca and Golegã, Azinhaga and Pombalinho as beneficiary institutions. The ACES Lezíria – UCC Chamusca / Golegã participates, although it is not an eligible institution. The mobilization of different complementarities of institutions, such as research and development activities in education for health and development and validation instruments, which combine the technological part, justifies the importance of their development. The participation of educational and healthcare institutions contributes to developing synergies that support the changes needed to achieve health gains. The defined activities form part of a coherent work plan. Include: designing the evaluation instrument for the impact of the health education program, developing a web communication platform, and creating an intervention program for the school population in the 3rd cycle of basic education on food, harmful consumption, and sexuality.

The plan for disseminating results and knowledge aligns with broad territorial coverage and corresponds to the fields of health and health-related technology. The project’s scientific and technological knowledge will contribute to regional and national recovery through knowledge translation.

Keywords: Health assessment; Scales; Healthy life style; Health literacy; Health promotion

Principal Investigator: Hélia Maria da Silva Dias – Santarém Polytechnic University

Principal Investigator@ ciTechCare: José Carlos Quaresma 

Research Team

• Santarém Polytechnic University: Ana Spinola; Celeste Godinho; Clara André; Filipe Madeira; Helia Dias; José Amendoeira; Josue Duarte; Maria do Carmo Figueiredo
• Polytechnic University of Viseu: Manuela Ferreira

Duration: 28 months (2017 – 2019)

Institutional Partners and Others

• Santarém Polytechnic University
• Polytechnic University of Viseu
• School Groups of Golegã, Azinhaga e Pombalinho
• School Grouping of Chamusca

Reference: SAICT-POL/23386/2016

Funding

• Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia
• Portugal2020
• FEDER