IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v17y2020i16p5891-d398702.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Increasing Health Literacy May Reduce Health Inequalities: Evidence from a National Population Survey in Ireland

Author

Listed:
  • Sarah Gibney

    (Department of Health, Dublin 2, DO2 XW14, Ireland)

  • Lucy Bruton

    (Department of Health, Dublin 2, DO2 XW14, Ireland)

  • Catherine Ryan

    (Department of Health, Dublin 2, DO2 XW14, Ireland)

  • Gerardine Doyle

    (UCD College of Business, University College Dublin, Dublin 4, D04 V1W8, Ireland
    UCD Geary Institute for Public Policy, University College Dublin, Dublin 4, D04 V1W8, Ireland)

  • Gillian Rowlands

    (Population Health Sciences Institute, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU, UK)

Abstract

Background . Health literacy has been separately associated with socio-economic status and worse health status and outcomes. However, the magnitude of the associations between health literacy and health status and outcomes may not be evenly distributed across society. This study aims to estimate and compare the associations between health status, health behaviours, and healthcare utilisation within different levels of social status in the Irish population. Materials and methods . Data from Ireland collected as part of the 2011 European Health Literacy Survey were analysed. General health literacy was measured on a 0–50 scale, low to high. There were four binary outcomes: long-standing health conditions, smoking, hospital visits in the last 12 months, and self-rated health status. Logistic regression analysis was conducted to estimate the likelihood of each health outcome. Health literacy was treated as the main independent variable. Marginal effects were calculated using the delta method to demonstrate the change in likelihood of each outcome associated with a 5-point increase in health literacy score. The sample was grouped into tertiles based on self-reported social status, and models were replicated and compared for each tertile. Models were adjusted for known correlates of health literacy and health: age, gender, and education. Analysis was conducted using Stata V14. Results . Higher health literacy scores were associated with a lower probability of having a limiting illness within the low social status group only. Higher health literacy scores were associated with a lower probability of three or more hospital visits in the past 12 months in the low and middle social status groups. For people in the low and middle social status groups, higher health literacy levels were associated with a lower probability of being a current smoker. The associations between health literacy and self-rated health status were similar in each social status group. Conclusions : Improvement in population health literacy may reduce the prevalence of long-term chronic health conditions, reduce smoking levels, and result in fewer hospital visits. Whilst improved health literacy should improve behaviours and outcomes in all groups, it should have a more marked impact in lower social status groups, and hence contribute to reducing the observed social disparities in these health outcomes.

Suggested Citation

  • Sarah Gibney & Lucy Bruton & Catherine Ryan & Gerardine Doyle & Gillian Rowlands, 2020. "Increasing Health Literacy May Reduce Health Inequalities: Evidence from a National Population Survey in Ireland," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(16), pages 1-17, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:16:p:5891-:d:398702
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/16/5891/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/16/5891/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Asaria, Miqdad & Doran, Tim & Cookson, Richard, 2016. "The costs of inequality: whole-population modelling study of lifetime inpatient hospital costs in the English National Health Service by level of neighbourhood deprivation," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 101244, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Burke, Sara Ann & Normand, Charles & Barry, Sarah & Thomas, Steve, 2016. "From universal health insurance to universal healthcare? The shifting health policy landscape in Ireland since the economic crisis," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 120(3), pages 235-240.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Liza Diniarizky Putri & Herlina Agustin & Iriana Bakti & Jenny Ratna Suminar, 2024. "Addressing Health Illiteracy and Stunting in Culture-Shocked Indigenous Populations: A Case Study of Outer Baduy in Indonesia," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 21(9), pages 1-15, August.
    2. Andreia Costa & Rodrigo Feteira-Santos & Violeta Alarcão & Adriana Henriques & Teresa Madeira & Ana Virgolino & Miguel Arriaga & Paulo J. Nogueira, 2023. "Health Literacy among Older Adults in Portugal and Associated Sociodemographic, Health and Healthcare-Related Factors," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(5), pages 1-16, February.
    3. Xueyan Chen & Tao Zhou & Di Wang, 2022. "The Impact of Multidimensional Health Levels on Rural Poverty: Evidence from Rural China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(7), pages 1-15, March.
    4. Megan Freund & Natasha Noble & Allison Boyes & Matthew Clapham & David Adamson & Robert Sanson-Fisher, 2023. "How Does the Health Literacy of Adults Residing in Social Housing Compare with That of Those Living in Other Housing Tenures in Australia? A Secondary Analysis of the Australian National Health Survey," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(18), pages 1-10, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Eric French & Elaine Kelly & Richard Cookson & Carol Propper & Miqdad Asaria & Rosalind Raine, 2016. "Socio‐Economic Inequalities in Health Care in England," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 37, pages 371-403, September.
    2. Johnston, Bridget M. & Burke, Sara & Barry, Sarah & Normand, Charles & Ní Fhallúin, Maebh & Thomas, Steve, 2019. "Private health expenditure in Ireland: Assessing the affordability of private financing of health care," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 123(10), pages 963-969.
    3. Connolly, Sheelah & Wren, Maev-Ann, 2016. "The 2011 proposal for Universal Health Insurance in Ireland: Potential implications for healthcare expenditure," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 120(7), pages 790-796.
    4. Laura Bojke & Andrea Manca & Miqdad Asaria & Ronan Mahon & Shijie Ren & Stephen Palmer, 2017. "How to Appropriately Extrapolate Costs and Utilities in Cost-Effectiveness Analysis," PharmacoEconomics, Springer, vol. 35(8), pages 767-776, August.
    5. Hazewinkel, Audinga-Dea & Richmond, Rebecca C. & Wade, Kaitlin H. & Dixon, Padraig, 2022. "Mendelian randomization analysis of the causal impact of body mass index and waist-hip ratio on rates of hospital admission," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 44(C).
    6. Dong-Shang Chang & Wen-Sheng Wang & Rouwen Wang, 2018. "Identifying Critical Factors of Sustainable Healthcare Institutions’ Indicators Under Taiwan’s National Health Insurance System," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 140(1), pages 287-307, November.
    7. Miqdad Asaria, 2017. "Health care costs in the English NHS: reference tables for average annual NHS spend by age, sex and deprivation group," Working Papers 147cherp, Centre for Health Economics, University of York.
    8. Smith, Samantha & Walsh, Brendan & Wren, Maev-Ann & Barron, Steve & Morgenroth, Edgar & Eighan, James & Lyons, Seán, 2019. "Geographic profile of healthcare needs and non-acute healthcare supply in Ireland," Research Series, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number RS90.
    9. Peter Smith, 2019. "Can a Strong Economic Case Be Made for Investing in the NHS?," Monograph 002090, Office of Health Economics.
    10. Thomas Leoni & Martin Spielauer & Peter Reschenhofer, 2020. "Soziale Unterschiede, Lebenserwartung und Gesundheitsausgaben im Lebensverlauf," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 66626, April.
    11. Murphy, Aileen & Bourke, Jane & Turner, Brian, 2020. "A two-tiered public-private health system: Who stays in (private) hospitals in Ireland?," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 124(7), pages 765-771.
    12. Cookson, R. & Asaria, M. & Ali, S. & Shaw, R. & Doran, T. & Goldblatt, P., 2018. "Health equity monitoring for healthcare quality assurance," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 198(C), pages 148-156.
    13. Enkai Guo & Huamei Zhong & Yang Gao & Jing Li & Zhaohong Wang, 2022. "Socioeconomic Disparities in Health Care Consumption: Using the 2018-China Family Panel Studies," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(12), pages 1-14, June.
    14. Donnelly, Nora-Ann & Humphries, Niamh & Hickey, Anne & Doyle, Frank, 2017. "“We don’t have the infrastructure to support them at home”: How health system inadequacies impact on long-term care admissions of people with dementia," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 121(12), pages 1280-1287.
    15. Demir, Eren & Yakutcan, Usame & Page, Stephen, 2024. "Using simulation modelling to transform hospital planning and management to address health inequalities," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 347(C).
    16. Lau, Manfred & Larkin, Charles & Harty, Michael & Corbet, Shaen, 2021. "Creating universal health care in Ireland: A legal context," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 125(6), pages 777-785.
    17. Burke, Sara & McGettrick, Grainne & Foley, Karen & Manikandan, Manjula & Barry, Sarah, 2020. "The 2019 neuro-rehabilitation implementation framework in Ireland: Challenges for implementation and the implications for people with brain injuries," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 124(3), pages 225-230.
    18. Espinosa-González, Ana Belén & Delaney, Brendan C. & Marti, Joachim & Darzi, Ara, 2021. "The role of the state in financing and regulating primary care in Europe: a taxonomy," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 125(2), pages 168-176.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:16:p:5891-:d:398702. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.