Effects of Health Literacy in the Fight Against the COVID-19 Infodemic: The Case of Japan

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study quantitatively examines whether health literacy can reduce belief in COVID-19 misinformation and conspiracy theories. Conducting path and cluster analyses on survey data collected from 1,488 adults in Japan in 2021, we found that while health literacy reduces people’s belief about COVID-19 and vaccination misinformation, it has no direct effect on their belief in COVID-19 conspiracy theories. That said, the results also highlighted the importance of health literacy. It is found that even though high health literacy does not guarantee a low degree of conspiracy beliefs, low health literacy is associated with high susceptibility to both misinformation and conspiracy theories. Moreover, people who relied more on social media than mass media for COVID-19 news and reported on having been more severely affected by the pandemic were found to be more likely to have lower health literacy and higher belief in misinformation and conspiracy theories. Based on the findings, we discussed ways to enhance health literacy research and promotion in Japan.