Medical College of Georgia, 1120 15th Street, EB 1011, Augusta, GA 30912, USA.
J Health Commun. 2012;17(2):230-45. doi: 10.1080/10810730.2011.585688. Epub 2011 Nov 7.
Arthritis researchers have thoroughly documented a powerful relationship between years of education and health outcomes, but they have not documented the role of literacy. The authors examined the associations between literacy and arthritis health status measures. Participants were recruited from southeastern urban and rural areas. Rapid Estimate of Adult Literacy in Medicine, which provides an estimate of reading level in less than 3 minutes, was administered to 447 participants at baseline in 2 community-based randomized controlled trials of lifestyle interventions designed for aging sedentary adults with arthritis. Those who read below ninth grade were considered to have low literacy. Among the 447 study participants, the median sample age was 69 years. A majority of the participants were women (86%), Caucasian (80%), overweight or obese (72%). Of all participants, 20% had low literacy. Significantly more African Americans (54%) than Caucasians (12%) had low literacy levels (p < .001). Individuals with low literacy did not have significantly worse disability or arthritis symptoms than individuals with adequate literacy (all ps > .05). Among our study participants, 1 in 5 had low literacy, but literacy was not associated with health status in this population.
关节炎研究人员已经充分记录了教育年限与健康结果之间的强大关系，但他们没有记录识字率的作用。作者研究了识字率与关节炎健康状况衡量标准之间的关联。参与者是从东南部城市和农村地区招募的。在 2 项针对关节炎久坐不动的老年成年人的生活方式干预的社区随机对照试验中，在基线时对 447 名参与者进行了快速成人医学识字评估，该评估在不到 3 分钟的时间内提供阅读水平的估计。阅读水平低于 9 年级的被认为识字水平低。在 447 名研究参与者中，中位数样本年龄为 69 岁。大多数参与者为女性（86%），白种人（80%），超重或肥胖（72%）。所有参与者中，20%识字水平低。识字水平低的非裔美国人（54%）明显多于白种人（12%）（p<.001）。识字水平低的人与识字水平足够的人相比，残疾或关节炎症状没有明显更差（所有 p>.05）。在我们的研究参与者中，每 5 人就有 1 人识字水平低，但在该人群中，识字水平与健康状况无关。
