Health literacy of Dutch adults: a cross sectional survey

Abstract

BackgroundRelatively little knowledge is available to date about health literacy among the general population in Europe. It is important to gain insights into health literacy competences among the general population, as this might contribute to more effective health promotion and help clarify socio-economic disparities in health. This paper is part of the European Health Literacy Survey (HLS-EU). It aims to add to the body of theoretical knowledge about health literacy by measuring perceived difficulties with health information in various domains of health, looking at a number of competences. The definition and measure of health literacy is still topic of debate and hardly any instruments are available that are applicable for the general population. The objectives were to obtain an initial measure of health literacy in a sample of the general population in the Netherlands and to relate this measure to education, income, perceived social status, age, and sex.MethodsThe HLS-EU questionnaire was administered face-to-face in a sample of 925 Dutch adults, during July 2011. Perceived difficulties with the health literacy competences for accessing, understanding, appraising and applying information were measured within the domains of healthcare, disease prevention and health promotion. Multiple linear regression analyses were applied to explore the associations between health literacy competences and education, income, perceived social status, age, and sex.ResultsPerceived difficulties with health information and their association with demographic and socio-economic variables vary according to the competence and health domain addressed. Having a low level of education or a low perceived social status or being male were consistently found to be significantly related to relatively low health literacy scores, mainly for accessing and understanding health information.ConclusionsPerceived difficulties with health information vary between competences and domains of health. Health literacy competences are associated with indicators of socio-economic position and with the domain in which health information is provided.

Health literacy and health among the elderly: status and challenges in the context of the Polish population aging process

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Effects of Previous Fruit Intake, Descriptive Majority Norms, and Message Framing on Fruit Intake Intentions and Behaviors in Dutch Adults Across a 1-Week Period

“…Recent message framing studies have begun focusing on how more objective measures of attention, such as eye tracking, affect persuasion via framed messages. 62 Future research should include more objective measures of attention to understand what people actually attend to. Third, most study participants had high educational attainment, and so generalization to less-educated strata of the population should be cautioned against.…”

Gesundheitskompetenz von Erwachsenen in Deutschland

“…In verschiedenen bevölkerungswei-ten [10,15,16,34] und zielgruppen-oder kontextspezifischen [13] Studien wurden Assoziationen zwischen soziodemografischen Merkmalen und GK gefunden. Dabei waren zumeist weibliches Geschlecht, höheres Lebensalter oder höhere Bildung mit einem höheren GK-Level assoziiert.…”

“…Aber auch die NRW-Studie findet keine signifikante Assoziation zwischen allgemeiner GK und Alter [10]. Somit zeigt die soziodemografische Verteilung der GK-Level in GEDA 2013s ein gemischtes Bild, wie es in anderen bevölkerungsweiten Studien zu finden ist [15,34,35]. Hinsichtlich der Bildungsunterschiede wird vermutet, dass GK eine Rolle bei der Erklärung des Zusammenhangs zwischen niedrigem Bildungsniveau und schlechter Gesundheit spielen könnte [36].…”