Education Level as a Predictor for Health Literacy Levels in a Rural Community Health Centre

Abstract

Health literacy is an important determinant in individual health and public health. However, evidence suggests that there are still disparities in health literacy levels between different socio-economic and education backgrounds. This study aims to look at level of education as a predictor for achieving a certain health literacy level. This study used a crosssectional design. The study was conducted in Ngempit Village, in the district of Pasuruan, East Java. The participants were registered patients at the Ngempit Community Health Centre (PUSKESMAS). Data were collected through interviews and surveys utilising a translated and adapted version of Health Literacy Survey Europe with ten short questions (HLS-EU-SQ10-IDN). Spearman's correlation was used to see the correlation between variables and a causal model logistic regression was built to estimate the association of education on health literacy after controlling for confounders. A total of 60 participants were included in the study. Having only achieved primary education is associated with 5 times the odds (95% CI: 0.31 -92.2, p:0.253) of problematic or inadequate health literacy levels compared to participants achieving at least high-school education.

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“…Lack of health literacy among rural residents could lead to a low awareness of the adverse health effect of smoking, which is an important predictor of smoking behavior (Andiwijaya et al, 2022, Tee et al, 2016.…”