Thirty years after the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development – predicated on seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – were unveiled to the global community. Health literacy is an essential precondition and indicator of achieving the SDGs. Efforts to define and describe health literacy within public health and medicine have identified that the skills and abilities of many populations are inadequate to navigate the demands and complexity of health and healthcare. The authors suggest health literacy must move beyond the bench and bedside in clinical practice to achieve the aspirations and objectives of the SDGs.

This report synthesizes major developments in health literacy and draws from related disciplines to propose opportunities and future directions to improve health literacy across the lifespan. It introduces the cases of early childhood vaccinations; alcohol intake in adolescence; and dementia care in older adults to demonstrate the need for health literacy across the life course. It also draws on digital health data and technology and multisectoral partnerships to define the future of health literacy. The authors believe these approaches can and will lead to unlikely collaborations that advance health and well-being throughout and beyond the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.