Literacy has emerged as an approach to achieving the United Nation’s sustainable development Goals (SDGs) on good health and wellbeing for all ages and in all societies. It comes as a core purpose of public health having a far reaching agenda to include school children in order to ensure sustainable health practices within populations. However, literacy on health seems to be inadequate and excludes pupils. The situation poses a risk to the actualisation of the objective on good health and wellbeing in developing societies. This survey was conducted to examine the influence of literacy on sustainable health practices among pupils in Calabar South Local Government Area of Cross River State, Nigeria. Leaned onto the social constructivist and social inclusion postulations, three research questions and null hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. 200 respondents were randomly selected from the population within the research location. Data was pooled from participants via the literacy acquisition and healthcare practices questionnaire (LHPQ). The Independent t-test statistic was applied to analyse data. Findings showed that functional, interactive and critical literacy have significant influence on sustainable health practices among pupils. The recommendations reflect the adoption of inclusive strategies to enable pupils co-create knowledge and co-partner with adults on health literacy to enhance health practices in the context.
Keywords: Calabar-South, Literacy, Pupils., sustainable health practices
