ArticleBMC public health2024
Does health literacy mediate the relationship between socioeconomic status and health related outcomes in the Belgian adult population?
Article in BMC public health, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 24 papers.
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Who cites it
24 citing papers in PubMed, 21 citations in OpenAlex.
- Time Scarcity, Health Behaviors, and Unconditional Cash in Los Angeles.American journal of public health · 2025Trial
- Health literacy, medication adherence, and quality-of-life scores in Jordanian adults with chronic diseases: a dual analytical study using the long-term conditions questionnaire and the EuroQol five-dimension three-level questionnaire.The Libyan journal of medicine · 2026Article
- Beyond the Lines: Exploration of Health Literacy Among Inmates in a European Prison in Africa.Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities · 2026Article
- Article
- Socioeconomic Determinants of Diabetes Self-Care and Health Literacy Among Adults in Southern Riyadh.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Potential for primary prevention of low birth weight in pregnancies with and without gestational diabetes mellitus: a prospective cohort study in Central China.BMC pregnancy and childbirth · 2026Article
- Health literacy competencies among future healthcare providers: a cross-sectional study of preclinical medical students using TSOY-32.BMC primary care · 2026Article
- Association and risk prediction of 19 complex diseases with polygenic scores and socioeconomic status.Communications medicine · 2026Article
- Reciprocal innovation to improve access to primary healthcare in Belgium: adaptation and development of a community health worker intervention.BMC health services research · 2026Article
- Disparity in cancer literacy by socioeconomic status.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Exploring the factors associated with health literacy among adolescents in Hong Kong.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Health literacy and its sociodemographic and health determinants.Revista da Escola de Enfermagem da U S P · 2026Article
- Health literacy domains and socioeconomic inequalities in leisure-time physical activity among Korean adults.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Divergent risk profiles for cause-specific mortality in MASLD and MetALD: a nationwide population-based study.Frontiers in medicine · 2026Article
- Determinants of inflammatory and adipokine biomarkers in obese young women: The role of skeletal muscle and lifestyle factors in Indonesia.Journal of education and health promotion · 2026Article
- Spatiotemporal Epidemiology of Female Thyroid Cancer: A Retrospective Population-Based Registry Study in the Hamadan Province, Iran (2010-2019).Archives of Iranian medicine · 2025Article
- Binational comparison of the association between socioeconomic status and metabolic syndrome: A nationally representative study in South Korea and the United States.Preventive medicine reports · 2025Article
- The impact of polygenic score and socioeconomic status in predicting risk for 19 complex diseases.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
- Association of health literacy with cancer survival: a single-centre prospective cohort study.Acta oncologica (Stockholm, Sweden) · 2025Article
- Exploring health literacy development through co-design: understanding the expectations for health literacy mediators.Health promotion international · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundHealth literacy (HL) has been put forward as a potential mediator through which socioeconomic status (SES) affects health. This study explores whether HL mediates the relation between SES and a selection of health or health-related outcomes.
methodsData from the participants of the Belgian health interview survey 2018 aged 18 years or older were individually linked with data from the Belgian compulsory health insurance (n = 8080). HL was assessed with the HLS-EU-Q6. Mediation analyses were performed with health behaviour (physical activity, diet, alcohol and tobacco consumption), health status (perceived health status, mental health status), use of medicine (purchase of antibiotics), and use of preventive care (preventive dental care, influenza vaccination, breast cancer screening) as dependent outcome variables, educational attainment and income as independent variables of interest, age and sex as potential confounders and HL as mediating variable.
resultsThe study showed that unhealthy behaviours (except alcohol consumption), poorer health status, higher use of medicine and lower use of preventive care (except flu vaccination) were associated with low SES (i.e., low education and low income) and with insufficient HL. HL partially mediated the relationship between education and health behaviour, perceived health status and mental health status, accounting for 3.8-16.0% of the total effect. HL also constituted a pathway by which income influences health behaviour, perceived health status, mental health status and preventive dental care, with the mediation effects accounting for 2.1-10.8% of the total effect.
conclusionsAlthough the influence of HL in the pathway is limited, our findings suggest that strategies for improving various health-related outcomes among low SES groups should include initiatives to enhance HL in these population groups. Further research is needed to confirm our results and to better explore the mediating effects of HL.
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