Investigation And Situation Analysis Of People’s Health Literacy In Dandong City

BackgroundIn recent years, health literacy issues have been a large number of domestic andforeign scholars and government attach great importance to all countries. In China,population aging phenomenon is very serious, so chronic disease incidence rate risesquickly. Coping with chronic disease, health education is one of the world recognizedthe preferred approach, and health literacy is the basis and aim of health education. InJanuary2008, the Ministry of Health first released the comprehensive definition ofcitizen’s basic health literacy content,"Chinese citizens’ health literacy-the basicknowledge and skills (Trial)". In the same year, the Ministry of Health launched anationwide survey. Results showed that our country the residents’ health literacy levelwas6.48%, at a relatively low level. Domestic health literacy research reports aremore, but lack Dandong city residents’ health literacy research. This study first made acomprehensive analysis on Dandong city residents’ health literacy based on the2010national health quality monitoring project.ObjectiveMaster the current state of urban and rural residents’ health literacy in Dandongcity, explored the influence factors, and developed intervention strategies for policymaker.MethodsBy using multistage stratified cluster sampling method, we selected2community(Yuanbao district) and2villages (Kuandian County),1000people as investigationobject. The questionnaire was designed by the National Health Education Center2010Based on "Chinese citizens’ health literacy, basic knowledge and skills (for TrialImplementation)".The investigators interviewed the samples face to face. Epidata3.0 software was used to establish database, SPSS13.0software for statistical analysis.Through descriptive analysis, multivariate analysis, to explore the impact of residents’health literacy level factors.ResultsIn2010, residents’ health literacy level in Dandong city is11.41%, and the basicknowledge and concepts, healthy life style and behavior, basic skill three aspects ofliteracy ratio is respectively20.22%,11.91%and21.02%.5categories of healthliteracy ratio from high to low are as follows. The rate of basic knowledge andconcept attainment literacy is34.43％, safety and first aid literacy is34.43%,infectious disease prevention literacy is18.92%, basic medical literacy is7.61%,chronic disease prevention knowledge literacy is7.11%. Multiple linear regressionanalysis showed that age and culture are the main influencing factors.ConclusionsResidents of Dandong city have health literacy level is11.41%, higher than thatof the Ministry of health in2009published results (6.48%), slightly higher than thesame year in Liaoning Provincial Health Education Center released the results of the10.45%, but still at a lower level. Dandong city urban and rural residents’ healthliteracy level is lopsided developing. That is, the level of city was higher than rural;the under25age group was higher than that of other age groups; high-educationgroup was higher than that of lower-education group.CountermeasuresThe government should strengthen leadership and attention, to further establishand improve the health education system covering both urban and rural areas,formation and the industry of perfect health education network; increase investment;to strengthen rural, higher age groups and low education health education.