The response to the Covid-19 pandemic raises a question about the role of national curriculum frameworks in acquiring and applying knowledge about hygiene and prevention of disease. For curriculum designers, this means determining what children of different ages should learn about these topics and how they should develop and apply this knowledge. Curriculum designers must do so amid trends towards reducing curriculum content and transitioning to competency-based curricula with transversal elements. Arguments can be made for placing health literacy competences, knowledge, and skills across the intended curriculum for science, physical education, and health. These are different disciplines with different models of knowledge, learning, and progression. This exploratory study looks at the placement of public health-related content in a selection of recently reformed, competency-based national curriculum frameworks from Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Australasia. From these examples, it highlights risks and opportunities for incorporating public health messages into the intended curriculum.

Social connection via its elements of social coherence, integration, contribution, actualisation and acceptance is postulated to contribute both to the development of societal well-being (Keyes, 1998;Keyes & Shapiro, 2004) and individual well-being (Wilkinson et al., 2019).Social connection is instrumental in the development of societal well-being via bonding and bridging relationships (Putnam, 2000).Bonding relationships are those that form or strengthen bonds between individuals or groups with similar interests, situations, contexts or demographics. Bridging relationships are those that form or strengthen bridges between individuals or groups of dissimilar situations, interests or demographics. Both bonding and bridging connections lead to development of social capital because there are consequent and subsequent benefits, as a result of being part of a social group (which can be as small as a family or extended family), a group of people with similar interests, a group of people living in a neighbourhood or by being a member of a larger community