PS-P12-3: RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS AND HEALTH LITERACY AMONG HEALTHY JAPANESE PEOPLE

Abstract

Objective: In today's society, people are encouraged to take more active roles in their own health. For that purpose, a wide range of health information has become available to the public, and increased attention is being paid to health literacy worldwide. The World Health Organization defines health literacy as the cognitive and social skills which determine the motivation and ability of individuals to gain access to, understand, and use information in ways which promote and maintain good health. On the other hand, low socioeconomic status is associated with higher blood pressure. Clarifying the relationship between socioeconomic status and health literacy could be useful to develop appropriate interventions to prevent hypertension in people with low socioeconomic status. This study clarified the relationship between socioeconomic status and health literacy among healthy Japanese people. Design and Method: This cross-sectional mail survey was conducted in 2020 that involved all community residents with municipal National Health Insurance aged 40–64 years in five cities in three areas of A Prefecture, Japan. This survey included 33,902 community residents, and 12,446 (36.7%) agreed to participate in the survey. After exclusion of those with regular visits to medical institutions (n = 8,174) and those with missing data (n = 690), the analysis included 3,582 participants. Socioeconomic status (education level, self-reported economic status, and occupation) and health literacy were obtained using the self-administered questionnaire. Health literacy was measured using the Communicative and Critical Health Literacy (CCHL) scale. Participants were classified into two groups, low and medium/high health literacy groups, by their CCHL scale scores. The study protocol was approved by the Institutional Review Boards. Results: In this study, 53.0% of those had < = 12 years of education, and 14.4% of those did not have an occupation. Regarding self-reported economic status, 18.3% were categorized as good, 22.3% as average, and 59.4% as poor. After adjusting for confounding factors, low education level [multivariable-adjusted odds ratio (OR) 1.61, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.38–1.88, < = 12 years vs. > 12 years], poor economic status [multivariable-adjusted OR 1.75, 95% CI 1.39–2.19, poor vs. good], and no occupation [multivariable-adjusted OR 1.45, 95% CI 1.18–1.78, absence vs. presence] were positively associated with low health literacy. Conclusions: Low socioeconomic status was associated with low health literacy among healthy Japanese people. In order to prevent hypertension in people with low socioeconomic status, it may be useful to develop easy-to-understand materials.