Limited Functional Health Literacy, Health Information Sources, and Health Behavior among Community-Dwelling Older Adults in Japan
Table 3
Health information sources and number thereof by health literacy level.
Overall ()
Functional health literacy
Low; 1~2.2 ()
Middle; 2.3~3.0 ()
High; 3.1~4.0 ()
People
Family
250 (40.5)
102 (46.2)
68 (35.2)
80 (39.2)
ns
Friend
240 (38.8)
89 (40.3)
77 (39.9)
74 (36.3)
ns
Organization/medical procedure
Medical institution
316 (51.1)
105 (47.5)
111 (57.5)
100 (49.0)
ns
Medical check-up#
230 (37.2)
62 (28.1)
84 (43.5)
84 (41.2)
**
Complete medical check-up#
23 (3.7)
3 (1.4)
9 (4.7)
11 (5.4)
—
Health consultation service
108 (17.5)
20 (9.0)
46 (23.8)
42 (20.6)
***
Community society
30 (4.9)
6 (2.7)
12 (6.2)
12 (5.9)
ns
Community senior club
111 (18.0)
27 (12.2)
41 (21.2)
43 (21.1)
*
Electronic media
Television
529 (85.6)
180 (81.4)
161 (83.4)
188 (92.2)
**
Radio
76 (12.3)
23 (10.4)
27 (14.0)
26 (12.7)
ns
Video/DVD
5 (0.8)
0 (0.0)
1 (0.5)
4 (2.0)
—
Internet
6 (1.0)
0 (0.0)
4 (2.1)
2 (1.0)
—
Printed media
Book/magazine
168 (27.2)
23 (10.4)
59 (30.6)
86 (42.2)
***
Newspaper
353 (57.1)
83 (37.6)
123 (63.7)
147 (72.1)
***
Public newsletter
168 (27.2)
39 (17.6)
61 (31.6)
68 (33.3)
***
Circular notice
151 (24.4)
43 (19.5)
52 (26.9)
56 (27.5)
ns
Other
5 (0.8)
1 (0.5)
1 (0.5)
3 (1.5)
—
None
10 (1.6)
10 (4.5)
0 (0.0)
0 (0.0)
—
Number of sources
***
Data are (%) or means ± SD. There are missing values on some items. *, **, ***. was used for categorical variables, while analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used for continuous variables. The number of sources was calculated using the ANOVA with the post hoc least significant difference test. The low functional health literacy group used less information sources than the middle () and high () functional health literacy groups. —Not examined due to too few responses.
#A “medical check-up” refers to health-care services typically provided by a health insurance organization (in public health service), while a “complete medical check-up” is provided by private hospitals that operate in private practice.
