Published online October 27, 2009
PEDIATRICS Vol. 124 Supplement November 2009, pp. S289-S298 (doi:10.1542/peds.2009-1162E)
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Submit a response
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me when eLetters are posted
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow E-mail this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My File Cabinet
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via CrossRef
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Yin, H. S.
Right arrow Articles by Dreyer, B. P.
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Yin, H. S.
Right arrow Articles by Dreyer, B. P.
Related Collections
Right arrow Office Practice
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Facebook   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

SUPPLEMENT ARTICLE


The Health Literacy of Parents in the United States: A Nationally Representative Study

H. Shonna Yin, MD, MSa, Matthew Johnson, PhDb, Alan L. Mendelsohn, MDa, Mary Ann Abrams, MD, MPHc, Lee M. Sanders, MDd and Benard P. Dreyer, MDa

a Department of Pediatrics, New York University School of Medicine and Bellevue Hospital Center, New York, New York
b Department of Human Development, Teacher's College, Columbia University, New York, New York
c Clinical Performance Improvement, Iowa Health System, Des Moines, Iowa
d Department of Pediatrics, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, Florida

OBJECTIVE: To assess the health literacy of US parents and explore the role of health literacy in mediating child health disparities.

METHODS: A cross-sectional study was performed for a nationally representative sample of US parents from the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy. Parent performance on 13 child health-related tasks was assessed by simple weighted analyses. Logistic regression analyses were performed to describe factors associated with low parent health literacy and to explore the relationship between health literacy and self-reported child health insurance status, difficulty understanding over-the-counter medication labeling, and use of food labels.

RESULTS: More than 6100 parents made up the sample (representing 72600098 US parents); 28.7% of the parents had below-basic/basic health literacy, 68.4% were unable to enter names and birth dates correctly on a health insurance form, 65.9% were unable to calculate the annual cost of a health insurance policy on the basis of family size, and 46.4% were unable to perform at least 1 of 2 medication-related tasks. Parents with below-basic health literacy were more likely to have a child without health insurance in their household (adjusted odds ratio: 2.4 [95% confidence interval: 1.1–4.9]) compared with parents with proficient health literacy. Parents with below-basic health literacy had 3.4 times the odds (95% confidence interval: 1.6–7.4) of reporting difficulty understanding over-the-counter medication labels. Parent health literacy was associated with nutrition label use in unadjusted analyses but did not retain significance in multivariate analyses. Health literacy accounted for some of the effect of education, racial/ethnic, immigrant-status, linguistic, and income-related disparities.

CONCLUSIONS: A large proportion of US parents have limited health-literacy skills. Decreasing literacy demands on parents, including simplification of health insurance and other medical forms, as well as medication and food labels, is needed to decrease health care access barriers for children and allow for informed parent decision-making. Addressing low parent health literacy may ameliorate existing child health disparities.

Key Words: health literacy • literacy • health care disparities

Abbreviations: NCES—National Center for Education Statistics • NAAL—National Assessment of Adult Literacy • OTC—over-the-counter • aOR—adjusted odds ratio • CI—confidence interval

Accepted Jul 20, 2009.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Facebook Facebook   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 PediatricsHome page
M. A. Abrams, P. Klass, and B. P. Dreyer
Health Literacy and Children: Introduction
Pediatrics, November 1, 2009; 124(Supplement_3): S262 - S264.
[Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 PediatricsHome page
L. M. Sanders, J. S. Shaw, G. Guez, C. Baur, and R. Rudd
Health Literacy and Child Health Promotion: Implications for Research, Clinical Care, and Public Policy
Pediatrics, November 1, 2009; 124(Supplement_3): S306 - S314.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]