At 2 p.m. on the afternoon of Friday, April 15th, 2022, the 97th Peking University Medical Humanities Forum was held online. Professor Zhou Xiaoying, School of Information Resource Management, Renmin University of China, was invited to make a lecture entitled “Information and Health”. It was chaired by Associate Professor Qi Huiying, School of Health Humanities, Peking University. More than 100 teachers and students from relevant fields attended the lecture.

　　  Starting with the concept of the “comprehensive health”, Professor Zhou Xiaoying introduced Online of the Healthy China 2030 Plan issued by the State Council of the Communist Party of China. The outline upgraded “comprehensive health” into a national strategy, which is a comprehensive health management centered around people’s health. On the basis of improving people’s health, it comprehensively and multi-dimensionally promotes health care for all population, entire life, and whole process. Professor Zhou further elaborated on the importance of information for health. She pointed out that information is the best medicine. Correct information can not only help people manage their health, but also improve the effectiveness of disease treatment.

　　 After that, Professor Zhou presented the concept of health literacy, and introduced how to cultivate the public’s health literacy. In addition, Professor Zhou emphasized that we should lead a healthy life and assist ourselves as well as our family in making health judgement with correct information. Therefore, we can increase our awareness of self-protection and avoid potential health risks. Finally, Professor Zhou pointed out that the measures aimed at improving the literacy capacity of all population are: cultivating expert professionals in the field of information and health; establishing professional teams with health literacy; developing the career of health consultants; guiding the consumption of health information and services with high quality. In this field, the lack of health information professionals is currently a major obstacle to promoting the development of national health literacy. Thus, special attention needs to be paid.

　　 This lecture focused on four topics: the correct understanding of health; information’s capacity in bringing health; the use of information for health improvement; the national strategy on information literacy. It emphasized the importance of cultivating health information literacy, and had been received with undiluted enthusiasm from the audience. The teachers and students who participated in the lecture had a heated discussion with Professor Zhou from different perspectives of health informatics, health communication, information ecology and so on.

　　 　　Department of Health Informatics and Management