ArticlePatient education and counseling2015
ABCs or 123s? The independent contributions of literacy and numeracy skills on health task performance among older adults.
Article in Patient education and counseling, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- A systematic review of instruments to measure health literacy of patients in emergency departments.Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine · 2022Pooled it
- Article
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- Structural Determinants of Health Literacy Among Formerly Incarcerated Individuals: Insights From the Survey of Racism and Public Health.Health literacy research and practice · 2025Article
- Associations between perceived discrimination over the life course, subjective social status, and health literacy: A racial/ethnic stratification analysis.PEC innovation · 2024Article
- Tools to measure barriers to medication management capacity in older adults: a scoping review.BMC geriatrics · 2024Article
- Recognition of small numbers in subset knowers Cardinal knowledge in early childhood.Royal Society open science · 2023Article
- Evaluation of a New Performance-Based Health Literacy Measurement Tool for Individuals With Chronic Airways Disease.Respiratory care · 2023Article
- Medication Dosing Schedules, Medication Knowledge, and Dosing Errors of Adults Taking Complex Drug Regimens.Journal of health care for the poor and underserved · 2023Article
- Effects of Objective and Subjective Health Literacy on Patients' Accurate Judgment of Health Information and Decision-Making Ability: Survey Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2021Article
- Presenting self-monitoring test results for consumers: the effects of graphical formats and age.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA · 2018Article
- Preferences of Patients and Pharmacists with Regard to the Management of Drug-Drug Interactions: A Choice-Based Conjoint Analysis.Drug safety · 2018Article
- Health Literacy in the German Population.Deutsches Arzteblatt international · 2017Article
- Shared Decision Making in the Emergency Department Among Patients With Limited Health Literacy: Beyond Slower and Louder.Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine · 2016Article
- Factors influencing health care and service providers' and their respective "at risk" populations' adoption of the Air Quality Health Index (AQHI): a qualitative study.BMC health services research · 2016Article
- Explanatory Models of Genetics and Genetic Risk among a Selected Group of Students.Frontiers in public health · 2016Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveTo investigate the relationship between literacy and numeracy and their association with health task performance.
methodsOlder adults (n=304) completed commonly used measures of literacy and numeracy. Single factor literacy and numeracy scores were calculated and used to predict performance on an established set of health self-management tasks, including: (i) responding to spoken information; (ii) comprehension of print and (iii) multimedia information; and (iv) organizing and dosing medication. Total and sub-scale scores were calculated.
resultsLiteracy and numeracy measures were highly correlated (rs=0.68; ps<0.001). In multivariable models adjusted for age, gender, race, education, and comorbidity, lower literacy (β=0.44, p<0.001) and numeracy (β=0.44, p<0.001) were independently associated with worse overall task performance and all sub-scales (literacy range, β=0.23-0.45, ps<0.001; numeracy range, β=0.31-0.41, ps<0.001). Multivariable analyses with both constructs entered explained more variance in overall health task performance compared with separate literacy and numeracy models (8.2% and 10% respectively, ps<0.001).
conclusionLiteracy and numeracy were highly correlated, but independent predictors of health task performance. These skill sets are complementary and both are important for health self-management. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: Self-management interventions may be more effective if they consider both literacy and numeracy skills rather than focusing on one specific ability.
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