ArticleBMC research notes2022
Double burden of COVID-19 knowledge deficit: low health literacy and high information avoidance.
Article in BMC research notes, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Prevalence and predictors of medical information avoidance: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Annals of behavioral medicine : a publication of the Society of Behavioral Medicine · 2025Pooled it
- Bridging the epistemic gap: a psychological acceptance model for the cross-cultural health communication of traditional Chinese medicine.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Narratives about distributed health literacy during the COVID-19 pandemic.Health (London, England : 1997) · 2025Article
- Adoption of a COVID-19 Contact Tracing App by Czech Youth: Cross-Cultural Replication Study.JMIR human factors · 2023Article
- Article
- Student information use during the COVID-19 pandemic.Journal of academic librarianship · 2023Article
- Trust in and Use of COVID-19 Information Sources Differs by Health Literacy among College Students.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Information avoidance in the age of COVID-19: A meta-analysis.Information processing & management · 2023Article
- What Drives Elderly People in China Away from COVID-19 Information?International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- What Causes Health Information Avoidance Behavior under Normalized COVID-19 Pandemic? A Research from Fuzzy Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Current Status and Associated Factors of Health Information Literacy Among the Community Elderly in Central China in the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Sectional Study.Risk management and healthcare policy · 2022Article
- Article
- Patterns of Parental Information Seeking Behavior on Early Childhood Caries: A Qualitative Exploration.Journal of International Society of Preventive & Community DentistryArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivePeople with lower levels of health literacy are likely to report engaging in information avoidance. However, health information avoidance has been overlooked in previous research on responses to viral outbreaks. The purpose of this cross-sectional survey study was to assess the relationship between health literacy and COVID-19 information avoidance. Students (n = 561) at a university in the south central region of the U.S. completed our online survey conducted from April to June 2020 using simple random sampling. We measured information avoidance and the degree to which people opt not to learn about COVID-19 when given the choice. We assessed participants' health literacy level using the Newest Vital Sign (NVS), eHealth Literacy Scale (eHEALS), and All Aspect of Health Literacy Scale (AAHLS).
resultsThose with lower health literacy were more likely to avoid information about COVID-19. This negative association between health literacy and information avoidance was consistent across all types of health literacy measures: NVS scores (b = - 0.47, p = 0.033), eHEALS scores (b = - 0.12, p = 0.003), functional health literacy (b = - 0.66, p = 0.001), communicative health literacy (b = - 0.94, p < 0.001), information appraisal (b = - 0.36, p = 0.004), and empowerment (b = - 0.62, p = 0.027). The double burden of low health literacy and high information avoidance is likely to lead to a lack of knowledge about COVID-19.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.