How can the level of health product education (literacy) be raised among the general public?

Recognising the pivotal role of health products in our society, the challenges around accessing reliable information in a fast-expanding digital environment, and the essential role played by health literacy in enabling citizens to make informed choices, this round table session was convened to identify strategies for improving health product education and understanding among the general public. Having discussed the concept of health literacy and those initiatives already in place, the participants put forward ten recommendations (R) for improving health product literacy: definition of a consensus-based common core of minimum knowledge about medicines to provide a benchmark level of public understanding (R1); development of a multimodal information campaign coordinated at national, local and individual levels (R2); implementation of long-term interventions with repeated, age-appropriate, and context-sensitive messaging (R3); early introduction of health product education early in schools via lessons and health services (R4); promotion of high-quality education by embracing psychosocial skills and co-constructing messages with public contributors (R5); proactive engagement in digital environments to ensure visibility of reliable content (R6); promotion and upscaling of existing initiatives and educational content (R7); introduction of a trusted structure that centralises validated content (R8); using prescriptions to deliver personalised information (R9); and contribution to national discussions around health-related misinformation (R10).