Abstract
BackgroundHealth literacy is a public health goal which can be used as an independent factor of health outcomes. This study aimed to assess the association between health literacy and health status, as well as the two mediating factors of behavior and self-efficacy among residents aged 15–69 years in Qingdao.MethodsA cross-sectional survey was implemented among residents aged 15–69 years (N = 3793) in Qingdao, China. A combination of stratified cluster random and proportional probability sampling methods was used to select subjects for this study. Data were collected using “The Chinese Citizen Health Literacy Questionnaire (2019)”. We proposed a hypothetical model for the relationship between sociodemographic characteristics, health literacy, self-efficacy, health behavior, and health status, and used path analysis to validate the hypothesis.ResultsThe path analysis showed that higher education (β = 0.293) and income (β = 0.135) are positively and directly associated with greater health literacy, which was positively associated with health status (β = 0.057). Health literacy is a direct influencing factor of health behavior (β = 0.070) and self-efficacy (β = 0.099). Health behavior (β = 0.041) and self-efficacy (β = 0.173) exerted a positive direct effect on health status. The model explained 14.1% of variance for health literacy, 3.8% for self-efficacy, 5.7% for health behavior, and 15.0% for health status.ConclusionsHealth literacy was identified to be a critical factor in health status. The results emphasized that the dissemination of health knowledge, development of healthy behavior, and cultivation of self-efficacy should be jointly promoted to reinforce the level of health status among residents in future work.
Highlights
Health literacy is defined as the capacity of individuals to access, process, and understand basic health information and services, and use them to make proper health decisions [1]
The present study showed that sociodemographic indicators, health literacy, self-efficacy, and health behavior were identified as important factors of health status
Health literacy was significantly correlated with health behavior, self-efficacy, and health status
Summary
Health literacy is defined as the capacity of individuals to access, process, and understand basic health information and services, and use them to make proper health decisions [1]. Some studies have demonstrated that the lack of self-efficacy [13] or poor health behavior [15, 16] of people with insufficient health literacy can lead to adverse health outcomes [17], while other studies have reported null associations [18,19,20]. Some investigations have discovered that self-efficacy is associated with health behavior or life quality, while other studies did not find such associations [20,21,22] Differences in these intermediate factors may lead to different roles played by health literacy in improving health outcomes. This study aimed to assess the association between health literacy and health status, as well as the two mediating factors of behavior and self-efficacy among residents aged 15–69 years in Qingdao
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