Department of Social Welfare, Graduate School of Social Welfare, Ewha Womans University, Seoul, Korea.
School of Social Work, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, United States.
Int Q Community Health Educ. 2021 Oct;42(1):29-36. doi: 10.1177/0272684X20973511. Epub 2020 Nov 17.
Health literacy is necessary to understand health information and make appropriate decisions regarding one's health. This study aims to investigate (1) the health literacy level of Korean citizens and Korean American (KA) immigrants in the United States and (2) factors that influence health literacy across three age groups. A quota sampling method was used to collect cross-sectional survey data from 404 Korean participants and 404 KA immigrants. Andersen's behavioral model was used as the theoretical framework for this study. Overall, Korean participants had a higher mean score on health literacy than did the KA immigrants. Only one of predisposing and enabling factors were significant variables influencing health literacy in KA immigrants, while several predisposing, enabling and need factors were significantly associated with health literacy in Korean adults. Our findings indicate that both countries need to have a community-based health literacy educational program that is tailored to each age group.
健康素养对于理解健康信息和做出与自身健康相关的恰当决策至关重要。本研究旨在调查：(1) 韩国公民和美国韩裔移民的健康素养水平；(2) 影响三个年龄组健康素养的因素。本研究采用配额抽样方法，从 404 名韩国参与者和 404 名美籍韩裔移民中收集了横断面调查数据。本研究以安德森行为模型为理论框架。总体而言，韩国参与者的健康素养平均得分高于美籍韩裔移民。仅有一个倾向因素和一个使能因素是影响美籍韩裔移民健康素养的显著变量，而几个倾向因素、使能因素和需求因素与韩国成年人的健康素养显著相关。我们的研究结果表明，这两个国家都需要开展一项基于社区的、针对各年龄组的健康素养教育项目。
