Helen Ryan

Helen Ryan has worked in the adult literacy sector for 25 years. She is currently working as health lead on Ireland’s 10-year Adult Literacy for Life Strategy. She has worked health and social care services to develop literacy friendly standards and supported them to use a literacy friendly approach. Contact: helen.ryan@solas.ie

Opinion, Policy perspectives

Making health literacy everyone’s business: How Ireland got adult and health literacy on the government agenda

Helen Ryan, in her column, tells how a crucial strategy by the new government played a vital role in prioritising health literacy on the national agenda in Ireland. According to her, the most successful way to promote health literacy issues among health professionals was by telling about people’s lived experience. Data and statistics were important, but it was the human stories that resonated the most.

Helen Ryan