School of Business, Western Sydney University, Parramatta, NSW 2150, Australia.
Translational Health Research Institute, Western Sydney University, Campbelltown, NSW 2560, Australia.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021 Feb 26;18(5):2303. doi: 10.3390/ijerph18052303.
Evidence shows that inadequate or low health literacy (LHL) levels are significantly associated with economic ramifications at the individual, employer, and health care system levels. Therefore, this study aims to estimate the economic burden of LHL among a culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) community in Blacktown: a local government area (LGA) in Sydney, Australia. This study is a secondary analysis of cross-sectional data from publicly available datasets, including 2011 and 2016 census data and National Health Survey (NHS) data (2017-2018) from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), and figures on Disease Expenditure in Australia for 2015-2016 provided by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW). This study found that 20% of Blacktown residents reported low levels of active engagement with health care providers (Domain 6 of the Health Literacy Questionnaire (HLQ)), with 14% reporting a limited understanding of the health information required to take action towards improving health or making health care decisions (Domain 9 of the HLQ). The overall extra/delta cost (direct and indirect health care costs) associated with LHL in the Blacktown LGA was estimated to be between $11,785,528 and $15,432,239 in 2020. This is projected to increase to between $18,922,844 and $24,191,911 in 2030. Additionally, the extra disability-adjusted life year (DALY) value in 2020, for all chronic diseases and age-groups-comprising the extra costs incurred due to years of life lost (YLL) and years lived with disability (YLD)-was estimated at $414,231,335. The findings of our study may enable policymakers to have a deeper understanding of the economic burden of LHL in terms of its impact on the health care system and the production economy.
证据表明，健康素养水平不足或低下与个人、雇主和医疗保健系统层面的经济后果显著相关。因此，本研究旨在估计澳大利亚悉尼布莱克敦一个文化和语言多样化（CALD）社区的低健康素养经济负担。本研究是对来自公开数据集的横断面数据进行的二次分析，包括 2011 年和 2016 年的人口普查数据以及澳大利亚统计局（ABS）的 2017-2018 年全国健康调查（NHS）数据，以及澳大利亚健康与福利研究所（AIHW）提供的 2015-2016 年澳大利亚疾病支出数据。本研究发现，20%的布莱克敦居民报告与医疗保健提供者的积极互动水平较低（健康素养问卷（HLQ）的第 6 域），14%的居民报告对采取行动改善健康或做出医疗保健决策所需的健康信息理解有限（HLQ 的第 9 域）。2020 年，布莱克敦地方政府区域（LGA）低健康素养的总额外/增量成本（直接和间接医疗保健成本）估计在 1178.5528 万至 1543.2239 万美元之间。预计到 2030 年，这一数字将增加到 1892.2844 万至 2419.1911 万美元。此外，2020 年所有慢性疾病和年龄组的额外残疾调整生命年（DALY）值，包括因生命损失（YLL）和残疾生存（YLD）而产生的额外成本，估计为 41423.135 万美元。本研究的结果可能使决策者更深入地了解健康素养低下对医疗保健系统和生产经济的影响所带来的经济负担。
