title: Analysis of awareness of health knowledge among rural residents in Western China.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Lifestyle diseases could be prevented and controlled by disseminating health knowledge. This study explored the health knowledge awareness and the impact factors of health knowledge awareness, and the way people received health knowledge in western China.
  
  
  METHODS
  We undertook a cross-sectional survey in 8 counties, 24 townships and 72 villages from July 2011 to April 2012 in Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Chongqing and Qinghai in China. Collected data, which were publicly available, consisted of two parts, namely, socio-demographic information and the 1466 corresponding rural residents' awareness and the approach of health knowledge. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to explore the impact factors of health knowledge awareness. Multiple linear regressions was then applied to examine the potential predictors of health knowledge awareness.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Four predictors-age (negative factor), educational level (positive factor), distance from home to the nearest medical institution (negative factor) and annul disposable household income (negative factor) were in the final liner regression model (p < 0.05). The results showed that awareness of health knowledge associated with risk factors was the highest (58.85%). The highest awareness rate of health knowledge is the title "Whether secondhand smoke is harmful to myself" (69.78%) and the lowest title is "Whether eating with hepatitis B patients will be infected Hepatitis B" (21.69%). The main way to receive health knowledge was traditional way such as doctors (80.45%). About more than half of the residents received health knowledge through television, video, newspaper and magazines (65.78%), family members, neighbors (67.38%) and the village health bulletin boards (53.16%).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Health knowledge awareness of rural residents was quite low and the way of receiving health knowledge was simple and traditional. One of the critical factors was education level. Direct results showed that lower income families always obtained higher health knowledge level than the rich families. The main way to receive health knowledge was traditional ways. In the process of health education, different means of education should be adopted for different groups so as to achieve ideal effect. Potential interventions may be different from education process which should be adapted to different income level families.
authors: School of Medicine and Health Management, Tongji Medical College, HuaZhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, HuBei Province, China. yuanfanglanzhou@163.com.
authors: Fang
authors: F
authors: Yuan
authors: College of Medical Administration, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, China. qiandf006@hotmail.com.
authors: Dongfu
authors: D
authors: Qian
authors: College of Laboratory Medicine, Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China. righthuang@sina.com.
authors: Chenglong
authors: C
authors: Huang
authors: Institute of Medical Information, Center for Health Policy and Management, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing, China. shuishuipp@163.com.
authors: Miaomiao
authors: M
authors: Tian
authors: School of Medicine and Health Management, Tongji Medical College, HuaZhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, HuBei Province, China. 11427843@qq.com.
authors: Yuanxi
authors: Y
authors: Xiang
authors: School of Medicine and Health Management, Tongji Medical College, HuaZhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, HuBei Province, China. 332973390@qq.com.
authors: Zhifei
authors: Z
authors: He
authors: School of Medicine and Health Management, Tongji Medical College, HuaZhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, HuBei Province, China. zcfeng@hust.edu.cn.
authors: Zhanchun
authors: Z
authors: Feng
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001364:Awareness; D002681:China; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D015438:Health Behavior; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D008019:Life Style; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012307:Risk Factors; D012424:Rural Population / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
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