Determinants of health literacy and health behavior regarding infectious respiratory diseases: a pathway model

• Published in: BMC public health 2013-03, Vol.13 (1), p.261-261, Article 261
• Main Authors: Sun, Xinying, Shi, Yuhui, Zeng, Qingqi, Wang, Yanling, Du, Weijing, Wei, Nanfang, Xie, Ruiqian, Chang, Chun
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Age; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Analysis; Analysis of Variance; Care and treatment; China; Chronic illnesses; Educational materials; Ethnicity; Field study; Health Behavior; Health care expenditures; Health education; Health Education - methods; Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; Health literacy; Health Literacy - statistics & numerical data; Health psychology; Health Status; Humans; Hypotheses; Illiteracy; Lung diseases; Male; Middle Aged; Models, Educational; Mortality; Questionnaires; R&D; Reproducibility of Results; Research & development; Respiratory tract diseases; Respiratory Tract Infections - prevention & control; Respiratory Tract Infections - psychology; Skills; Social Class; Surgeons General; Surveys; Surveys and Questionnaires
• ISSN: 1471-2458; 1471-2458
• DOI: 10.1186/1471-2458-13-261

Health literacy has been defined as the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand the basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions. Currently, few studies have validated the causal pathways of determinants of health literacy through the use of statistical modeling. The purpose of the present study was to develop and validate a health literacy model at an individual level that could best explain the determinants of health literacy and the associations between health literacy and health behaviors even health status. Skill-based health literacy test and a self-administrated questionnaire survey were conducted among 3222 Chinese adult residents. Path analysis was applied to validate the model. The model explained 38.6% of variance for health literacy, 11.7% for health behavior and 2.3% for health status: (GFI = 0.9990; RMR = 0.0521; χ(2) = 10.2151, P = 0.1159). Education has positive and direct effect on prior knowledge (β = 0.324) and health literacy (β = 0.346). Health literacy is also affected by prior knowledge (β = 0.245) and age (β = -0.361). Health literacy is a direct influencing factor of health behavior (β = 0.101). The most important factor of health status is age (β = 0.107). Health behavior and health status have a positive interaction effect. This model explains the determinants of health literacy and the associations between health literacy and health behaviors well. It could be applied to develop intervention strategies to increase individual health literacy, and then to promote health behavior and health status.