Enhancing teacher health literacy in school health promotion: A vision forthe new millennium

While the National Health Education Standards focused interest and attentio n on student (consumer) health literacy, equal attention should be given to teacher (provider) health literacy. Teacher health literacy may be defined as "the capacity of teachers to obtain, interpret, and understand basic he alth information and sen ices, with the competence to use such information and services in ways that enhance the learning of health concepts and skill s by school students." This paper reviews a traditional model for school he alth teacher preparation, then presents an alternative, university field-te sted model for enhancing health literacy in teacher education. This new mod el presents an innovative instructional paradigm, the Child and Adolescent Health (CAH) Logic Framework. This training model (vision) illustrates and emphasizes the link between child and adolescent health research and theory , CAH information, and application to health education, public policy, medi cal care. and health advocacy.