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Health literacy among different age groups in Germany: results of a cross-sectional survey
BACKGROUND: Health literacy is of increasing importance in public health research. It is a necessary pre-condition for the involvement in decisions about health and health care and related to health outcomes. Knowledge about limited health literacy in different age groups is crucial to better target...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2016
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5103460/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27829401 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-016-3810-6 |
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author | Berens, Eva-Maria Vogt, Dominique Messer, Melanie Hurrelmann, Klaus Schaeffer, Doris |
author_facet | Berens, Eva-Maria Vogt, Dominique Messer, Melanie Hurrelmann, Klaus Schaeffer, Doris |
author_sort | Berens, Eva-Maria |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Health literacy is of increasing importance in public health research. It is a necessary pre-condition for the involvement in decisions about health and health care and related to health outcomes. Knowledge about limited health literacy in different age groups is crucial to better target public health interventions for subgroups of the population. However, little is known about health literacy in Germany. The study therefore assesses the prevalence of limited health literacy and associated factors among different age groups. METHODS: The Health Literacy Survey Germany is a cross-sectional study with 2,000 participants aged 15 years or older in private households. Perceived health literacy was assessed via computer-assisted personal interviews using the HLS-EU-Q-47 questionnaire. Descriptive analyses, chi-square tests and odds ratios were performed stratified for different age groups. RESULTS: The population affected by limited perceived health literacy increases by age. Of the respondents aged 15–29 years, 47.3 % had limited perceived health literacy and 47.2 % of those aged 30–45 years, whereas 55.2 % of the respondents aged 46–64 years and 66.4 % aged 65 years and older showed limited perceived health literacy. In all age groups, limited perceived health literacy was associated with limited functional health literacy, low social status, and a high frequency of doctor visits. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest a need to further investigate perceived health literacy in all phases of the life-course. Particular attention should be devoted to persons with lower social status, limited functional health literacy and/or a high number of doctor visits in all age groups. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5103460 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2016 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-51034602016-11-10 Health literacy among different age groups in Germany: results of a cross-sectional survey Berens, Eva-Maria Vogt, Dominique Messer, Melanie Hurrelmann, Klaus Schaeffer, Doris BMC Public Health Research Article BACKGROUND: Health literacy is of increasing importance in public health research. It is a necessary pre-condition for the involvement in decisions about health and health care and related to health outcomes. Knowledge about limited health literacy in different age groups is crucial to better target public health interventions for subgroups of the population. However, little is known about health literacy in Germany. The study therefore assesses the prevalence of limited health literacy and associated factors among different age groups. METHODS: The Health Literacy Survey Germany is a cross-sectional study with 2,000 participants aged 15 years or older in private households. Perceived health literacy was assessed via computer-assisted personal interviews using the HLS-EU-Q-47 questionnaire. Descriptive analyses, chi-square tests and odds ratios were performed stratified for different age groups. RESULTS: The population affected by limited perceived health literacy increases by age. Of the respondents aged 15–29 years, 47.3 % had limited perceived health literacy and 47.2 % of those aged 30–45 years, whereas 55.2 % of the respondents aged 46–64 years and 66.4 % aged 65 years and older showed limited perceived health literacy. In all age groups, limited perceived health literacy was associated with limited functional health literacy, low social status, and a high frequency of doctor visits. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest a need to further investigate perceived health literacy in all phases of the life-course. Particular attention should be devoted to persons with lower social status, limited functional health literacy and/or a high number of doctor visits in all age groups. BioMed Central 2016-11-09 /pmc/articles/PMC5103460/ /pubmed/27829401 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-016-3810-6 Text en © The Author(s). 2016 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Berens, Eva-Maria Vogt, Dominique Messer, Melanie Hurrelmann, Klaus Schaeffer, Doris Health literacy among different age groups in Germany: results of a cross-sectional survey |
title | Health literacy among different age groups in Germany: results of a cross-sectional survey |
title_full | Health literacy among different age groups in Germany: results of a cross-sectional survey |
title_fullStr | Health literacy among different age groups in Germany: results of a cross-sectional survey |
title_full_unstemmed | Health literacy among different age groups in Germany: results of a cross-sectional survey |
title_short | Health literacy among different age groups in Germany: results of a cross-sectional survey |
title_sort | health literacy among different age groups in germany: results of a cross-sectional survey |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5103460/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27829401 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-016-3810-6 |
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