Health literacy is an important issue in public health today, especially as patients are taking a greater role in obtaining information about their health. Health literacy is commonly defined as 'the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions'. While there is a large body of literature concerning health literacy and adults, few studies have focused on adolescents. Adolescents may have less interaction with the health care system and lower health care costs than adults, but they are increasingly involved with their health care, especially those with chronic illness. They are frequent users of mass media and other technology to access health information and are a target group for many health-related educational interventions. Adolescents are also at a crucial stage of development, learning skills they will carry with them into adulthood. The goal of this paper is to provide a summary of issues justifying the importance of studying health literacy as it relates to adolescents and to provide a framework and suggestions for future research.
OBJECTIVE
To examine the association between maternal use of corporal
punishment (CP) against their 3-year-old children and subsequent aggressive
behavior among those children two years later.
METHODS
Respondents participated in waves 1, 3, and 5 of the Fragile Families
and Child Wellbeing Study (1998–2005), a population-based
longitudinal birth cohort study of children (and their parents) born in one
of 20 large U.S. cities (n=2,461), with oversampling of unmarried couples.
Maternal reports of CP, children’s aggressive behaviors at 3 and 5
years of age, and a host of key demographics and potential confounding
factors were assessed including: child physical maltreatment, psychological
maltreatment, and neglect, intimate partner aggression and violence, and
maternal stress, depression, substance use, and consideration of
abortion.
RESULTS
Multiple logistic regression analyses revealed that frequent use of
CP (i.e., maternal use of spanking more than twice in the prior month) when
the child was 3 years-old was associated with increased risk for higher
levels of child aggression when the child was 5 years-old (adjusted odds
ratio = 1.49 [CI=1.2–1.8] p<0.0001), even after
simultaneously controlling for the child’s level of aggression at 3
years of age as well as all of the aforementioned confounding factors and
key demographics.
CONCLUSIONS
Despite American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations to the
contrary, most parents in the U.S. approve of and have used CP as a form of
child discipline. The current findings support a growing body of evidence
that even minor forms of CP, such as spanking, raise risk for increased
subsequent child aggressive behavior. Importantly, these findings cannot be
attributed to the possible confounding effects of a host of other maternal
parenting risk factors. Increased and improved efforts to reduce the use of
CP and promote the use of alternative, effective non-physical forms of child
discipline among U.S. parents are warranted.
The COVID-19 pandemic has been accompanied by rapidly emerging evidence, changing guidance, and misinformation, which present new challenges for health literacy (HL) and digital health literacy (DHL) skills. This study explored whether COVID-19-related information access, attitudes, and behaviors were associated with health literacy and digital health literacy among college students in the United States. Self-reported measures of health literacy, along with items on pandemic-related attitudes, behaviors, information sources, and social networks, were collected online using a managed research panel. In July 2020, 256 responses were collected, which mirrored the racial/ethnic and gender diversity of U.S. colleges. Only 49% reported adequate HL, and 57% found DHL tasks easy overall. DHL did not vary by HL level. In multivariable models, both HL and DHL were independently associated with overall compliance with basic preventive practices. Higher DHL, but not HL, was significantly associated with greater willingness to get a COVID-19 vaccine and the belief that acquiring the disease would negatively impact their life. On average, respondents discussed health with 4–5 people, which did not vary by HL or DHL measures. The usage of online information sources varied by HL and DHL. The study findings can inform future student-focused interventions, including identifying the distinct roles of HL and DHL in pandemic information access, attitudes, and behaviors.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.