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Correlates of Health Literacy among Farmers in Northern Thailand

Low health literacy is a barrier to public health efforts worldwide. Agricultural workers have an elevated risk for lower health literacy, with important health implications because of their potential exposure to harmful chemicals. The Asian Health Literacy Survey (AHLS) has been developed and trans...

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Autores principales: Montgomery, Hannah, Morgan, Siena, Srithanaviboonchai, Kriengkrai, Ayood, Pisittawoot, Siviroj, Penprapa, Wood, Michele M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7579202/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32992606
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17197071
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author Montgomery, Hannah
Morgan, Siena
Srithanaviboonchai, Kriengkrai
Ayood, Pisittawoot
Siviroj, Penprapa
Wood, Michele M.
author_facet Montgomery, Hannah
Morgan, Siena
Srithanaviboonchai, Kriengkrai
Ayood, Pisittawoot
Siviroj, Penprapa
Wood, Michele M.
author_sort Montgomery, Hannah
collection PubMed
description Low health literacy is a barrier to public health efforts worldwide. Agricultural workers have an elevated risk for lower health literacy, with important health implications because of their potential exposure to harmful chemicals. The Asian Health Literacy Survey (AHLS) has been developed and translated for use in several different Asian countries and is standardized for easy comparisons across regions. However, it has not been translated for use in Thailand. The purpose of this study was to (1) to determine the health literacy of rural Thai farmers in Northern Thailand, and (2) identify correlates of health literacy within this group. Internal consistency of the Thai AHLS translation was “excellent” (alpha = 0.92). Descriptive results showed that health literacy was relatively high (M = 34.98/50, SD = 6.87). Education, income, working as a village health volunteer, age, length of time farming, no chemical use in farming, health, and pesticide screening were statistically significant correlates of health literacy (R(2) = 0.19). Thai farmers had higher health literacy than reported for several other Asian countries. Results may be used to inform the design of future health promotion programs.
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spelling pubmed-75792022020-10-29 Correlates of Health Literacy among Farmers in Northern Thailand Montgomery, Hannah Morgan, Siena Srithanaviboonchai, Kriengkrai Ayood, Pisittawoot Siviroj, Penprapa Wood, Michele M. Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Low health literacy is a barrier to public health efforts worldwide. Agricultural workers have an elevated risk for lower health literacy, with important health implications because of their potential exposure to harmful chemicals. The Asian Health Literacy Survey (AHLS) has been developed and translated for use in several different Asian countries and is standardized for easy comparisons across regions. However, it has not been translated for use in Thailand. The purpose of this study was to (1) to determine the health literacy of rural Thai farmers in Northern Thailand, and (2) identify correlates of health literacy within this group. Internal consistency of the Thai AHLS translation was “excellent” (alpha = 0.92). Descriptive results showed that health literacy was relatively high (M = 34.98/50, SD = 6.87). Education, income, working as a village health volunteer, age, length of time farming, no chemical use in farming, health, and pesticide screening were statistically significant correlates of health literacy (R(2) = 0.19). Thai farmers had higher health literacy than reported for several other Asian countries. Results may be used to inform the design of future health promotion programs. MDPI 2020-09-27 2020-10 /pmc/articles/PMC7579202/ /pubmed/32992606 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17197071 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Montgomery, Hannah
Morgan, Siena
Srithanaviboonchai, Kriengkrai
Ayood, Pisittawoot
Siviroj, Penprapa
Wood, Michele M.
Correlates of Health Literacy among Farmers in Northern Thailand
title Correlates of Health Literacy among Farmers in Northern Thailand
title_full Correlates of Health Literacy among Farmers in Northern Thailand
title_fullStr Correlates of Health Literacy among Farmers in Northern Thailand
title_full_unstemmed Correlates of Health Literacy among Farmers in Northern Thailand
title_short Correlates of Health Literacy among Farmers in Northern Thailand
title_sort correlates of health literacy among farmers in northern thailand
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7579202/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32992606
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17197071
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