[Study on indicator system for evaluating the adult health literacy in China].
OBJECTIVE
To establish a comprehensive evaluation indicator system for healthy literacy based on national survey data.


METHODS
A multi-stage stratified sampling method was carried out to select the sample population in six provinces of China, which were adults aged 18 - 69 years old. The national health literacy questionnaire was used to investigate the sample populations. The answers were scored according to the error answer of 0, uncertain answer of 1 and the correct answer of 2. The degrees of difficulty and difference were calculated and be used to screen the indicators from the questionnaire as to establishing the comprehensive evaluation indicator system of the health literacy. The Cronbach alpha coefficient, correlation analysis, regression analysis and cluster analysis methods were used to assess the reliability and validity of the indicator system.


RESULTS
The samples were 11 759 people, the valid questionnaires were 11 693 and the effective recovery rate was 99.4%, the Myer' index of sample was 4.92. There were 40 indexes selected to establish the comprehensive evaluation indicator system of health literacy. The correlation coefficient between indicator system and the questionnaire scores was 0.948 (P < 0.01), there were the significant differences between groups of being clustered by Q cluster analysis method (P < 0.01). The VIF of these four dimensions was less than 5.


CONCLUSIONS
In this study, the comprehensive evaluation indicator system had a good reliability and validity, and there existed no collinearity among four dimensions of indicator system, it should be the foundation for developing comprehensive evaluation index of health literacy.
Xiao
Li
L
National Institute for Health Education, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing, China.
Ma
Yu
Y
Hu
Jun-feng
JF
Cheng
Yu-lan
YL
Chen
Guo-yong
GY
Yang
Chong
C
Tao
Mao-xuan
MX
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002681:China; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D011788:Quality of Life; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult