HEALTH LITERACY SURVEY IN HAIPHONG CITY, VIETNAM Research institution: Hai Phong University of Medicine and Pharmacy Authors: Pham Minh Khue, MD, PhD., Hoang Thi Giang, MD, MSc., Pham Van Thuc, PhD., MD., et al.

Contents Introduction Methods Results and Discussion Conclusion

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Literacy in Vietnam and neighbor countries (UNESCO, 2013) Recent years, adult literacy rate in Vietnam has increased gradually (93,4% in 2011; target 94% in 2015) In Malaysia: 93,1% in 2010; target 94,5% in 2015

Definition Health literacy is linked to literacy and entails people’s knowledge, motivation and competences to access, understand, appraise, and apply health information in order to make judgments and take decisions in everyday life concerning healthcare, disease prevention and health promotion to maintain or improve quality of life during the life course (Sorensen et al. 2012).

Health Literacy in Vietnam Several health studies focused on knowledge, attitude and practice or behavior of specific groups of people relate to specific diseases. Lack of Health Literacy studies in Vietnam so far Never teach “health literacy” in school/university

Objectives We aim to estimate the health literacy of different subgroups of population in a coastal area of Vietnam.

Methods

Research site

Haiphong Site (3 wards/communes)

Methods - Design Study design Sampling Cross-sectional study Required sample size = 1000 Base on the list of local population, the random sampling was applied

Methods – Validation of questionnaire Bộ câu hỏi Điều tra “năng lực sức khỏe” – 2013 (source: HLS-Asia Consortium, 2013)

Methods - instrument Instrument: Questionnaire of HLS-Asia was translated into Vietnamese, and then back translated Face validation with experts Pre-test with the target participants Data collection: self-administrated questionnaire Time frame: Jan – Oct 2014

Results and discussion

Table 1: Socio-demographic characteristics of nation-wide randomly sampled populations (n=1000) Variables Values n Percentage Age (n=909) Range 17-79   40.79± 14.38  Age groups 17-24 143 15.5 25-34 217 23.5 35-44 189 20.5 45-54 201 22.1 55-64 105 11.6 65 and older 54 5.9 Gender (n= 914 ) Female 519 56.8 Male 395 43.2 The highest education attainment (n=924) Junior high school and below 292 31.9 Senior high school 335 36.6 University and above 289 31.5 Marital status (n=924) Never married 171 18.5 Married 703 76.1 Divorced, widowed, separated 50 5.4 Religious belief (n=924) Non-specific religion 615 66.6 Religion (Buddhism, Christian, Catholics, Islam, Others) 309 33.4 Residence location (n= 924)  Urban 328 35.5 Rural 302 32.7 Island 294 31.8

Table 2: HL scores between different subgroups of population Variables General Health Literacy Health care Literacy Deases Prevention Health Promotion (mean + SD) Gender Male 30.19+9.51 29.72+10.13 30.52+10.63 30.36+10.54 Female 30.72+9.67 29.92+10.76 31.24+10.87 31.03+10.42 P>0,05 Location Urban (1) 30.30+7.71 29.55+8.30 31.13+9.06 30.26+8.26 Rural (2) 28.23+11.02 27.91+12.36 28.26+12.41 28.51+11.80 Island (3) 32.91+9.30 32.01+10.13 33.37+10.02 33.38+10.58 P(1,2)=0.016 P(1,3)=0.02 P(2,3)<0.01 P(1,2)=0.116 P(1,3)=0.09 P(1,2)=0.002 P(1,3)=0.023 P(1,2)=0.083 P(1,3)<0.01 Mean health literacy score of 30.5+ 9.5 Taiwanese university students: 34.2 ± 6.5 (Lee F, 2012)

Table 3: Health Literacy thresholds General Health Literacy Health care Literacy Deases Prevention Health Promotion N (%) Inadequate 253 (27.4) 313 (33.9) 266 (28.8) 288 (31.2) Problematic 335 (36.3) 242 (26.2) 264 (28.6) Sufficient 210 (22.7) 236 (25.5) 243 (26.3) 229 (24.8) Excellent 126 (13.6) 122 (13.2) 173 (18.7) 143 (15.5) Limited HL 63.7% 61.3% 55.0% 59.8% Limited: Taiwanese students: 44.3% (Lee 2012); EU: 47.6% (Pleasant 2012) Inadequate: Singapore:11,6%; Japan: 15.5%

Conclusion First survey in a coastal sub-region in Vietnam 63.7% of respondents showing limited health literacy The mean cores differentiated between geographic locations

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