title: Development of a health literacy assessment for young adult college students: a pilot study.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The purpose of this study was to develop a comprehensive health literacy assessment tool for young adult college students.
  
  
  METHODS
  Participants were 144 undergraduate students.
  
  
  METHODS
  Two hundred and twenty-nine questions were developed, which were based on concepts identified by the US Department of Health and Human Services, the World Health Organization, and health communication scholars. Four health education experts reviewed this pool of items and helped select 87 questions for testing. Students completed an online assessment consisting of these 87 questions in June and October of 2012. Item response theory and goodness-of-fit values were used to help eliminate nonperforming questions.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Fifty-one questions were selected based on good item response theory discrimination parameter values.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The instrument has 51 questions that look promising for measuring health literacy in college students, but needs additional testing with a larger student population to see how these questions continue to perform.
authors.affiliation: a School of English and Media Studies , Massey University-Albany Campus , Auckland , New Zealand.
authors.forename: Raquel
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Harper
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D004496:Education, Continuing; D005260:Female; D057220:Health Literacy; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010865:Pilot Projects; D013334:Students; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014495:Universities; D055815:Young Adult