title: Investigation of residents' health literacy status and its risk factors in Jiangsu Province of China.
abstract: Health literacy has become an important public health concern. Multistage cluster random sampling was used to select 12 450 individuals. Using the 2009 Chinese Health Literacy questionnaire, participants were divided into groups with poor or not poor health literacy status. The knowledge rates for 6 areas of health literacy were determined with the following results: science concept of health (60.0%), literacy for preventing acute infectious disease (66.8%), literacy for preventing noncommunicable chronic disease (51.9%), safety and first aid (66.8%), obtaining and making use of basic medical care (55.3%), and comprehensive health literacy (52.5%). Multiple logistic regression showed that living in a rural area, fewer individuals in a household, younger age, low education, agricultural or rural migrant occupation workers, and low family income were associated with a poor health literacy status. Our results support the use of health education and promotion interventions to improve health literacy in this high-risk population in China.
authors.affiliation: Jiangsu Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Jiangsu Province, China.
authors.forename: Xiangsu
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Jiangsu Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Jiangsu Province, China.
authors.forename: Haijian
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.affiliation: Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, College of Public Health, East Tennessee State University wangl2@etsu.edu phelxn@tom.com.
authors.forename: Liang
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Jiangsu Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Jiangsu Province, China.
authors.forename: Xiaoning
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Jiangsu Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Jiangsu Province, China.
authors.forename: Minghao
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Jiangsu Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Jiangsu Province, China.
authors.forename: Zhihao
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, College of Public Health, East Tennessee State University.
authors.forename: Xuefeng
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, College of Public Health, East Tennessee State University.
authors.forename: Kesheng
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, College of Public Health, East Tennessee State University.
authors.forename: Arsham
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Alamian
authors.affiliation: Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, College of Public Health, East Tennessee State University.
authors.forename: James L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Anderson
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D002681:China / Q000453:epidemiology; D002908:Chronic Disease / Q000517:prevention & control; D003140:Communicable Disease Control; D005260:Female; D005392:First Aid; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D057220:Health Literacy; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D012111:Residence Characteristics; D012307:Risk Factors; D012449:Safety; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
keywords: China; epidemiology; health education and promotion; health literacy; risk factor