Public health policy in Republic of Kazakhstan: understanding of health issues among population

10.30207/AHLA.202312.0016

Kalel Zhan；Aringazina Altyn

health literacy ； public policy ； Republic of Kazakhstan

The Proceeding of the 9th AHLA International Health Literacy Conference: Health Literacy and Social Resilience

2023（2023 / 12 / 01）

17 - 17

英文

Background: Health literacy is a significant driving force behind achieving Sustainable Development Goals and a central tool of health promotion around the world, and Republic of Kazakhstan is no different. But studies show that health literacy levels remain limited across country - with social status, average monthly income, age, religion, education and family status being shown to have direct correlation with it. Objectives: These social determinants, serving as channels of influence on the levels of understanding, as well as health literacy itself are subject to state Public Health Policy, which we aim to explore in this paper. Methods: To do so we used literature review and legislation analysis. With the adaptation of Health Literacy Survey Questionnaire (HLS19-Q) for Russian-speaking populations the interest of researchers in the area is on the rise. Results: In 2022 the health literacy index of the population was tested, using HLS-Q22, to have increased to 75.32, which corresponds to a "sufficient" level. Nonetheless, 31,1% of the population were found to have problematic or inadequate literacy rate. Rural areas contribute mostly to the low end of the spectrum. Part of the problem is that Republic of Kazakhstan has no clear indicators or systems in place to track the changes in health literacy, despite its inclusion in two past national health projects for 2011-2015 and 2016-2019. In the latest national project "Healthy Nation" for 2021-2025 it plays a bigger role with approximately 1. 640 million USD funded by the government. Conclusion: It remains to be seen as to what direction public policy will take, but, overall, positive trends can be observed. Future research would need to determine the way of monitoring the positive and negative impacts of public health policy on health literacy in greater detail, to not lose sight of the processes going under the surface of general population health changes.