Analysis on health literacy and its influencing factors about cancer prevention and control among urban residents in Guangxi / 中华疾病控制杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate health literacy and its influencing factors about the cancer prevention and control among urban residents in Guangxi. Methods Guangxi urban residents were selected by using multi-stage hierarchical cluster random sampling. Health Literacy resident cancer prevention and health literacy questionnaire, which was provided by National Urban Cancer Early Diagnosis and Treatment Project, were used for the face-to-face interview among participants. Results Among all the residents included in this study, 7.5 % had health literacy. Univariate analysis showed that gender, age, education, occupation, family income were influencing factors of health literacy(all P<0.05). The level of health literacy of female was higher than that of male. People aged 40-59 years old had the highest health literacy levels, while people aged 60 years old and above had the lowest health literacy levels. Business personnel and civil servant had higher health literacy levels than other professional staffs. The level of health literacy of residents with annual household income more than 8 ten thousand yuan was higher than that of other residents. Those with higher educational levels had better health literacy levels. Cancer prevention awareness and early detection, early diagnosis, early treatment awareness, two dimensions of cancer prevention and health literacy, was 57.2% and 17%, respectively. Logistic regression analysis indicated that gender, household income and occupation were independent factors influencing cancer prevention and health literacy in Guangxi urban residents. Conclusion The cancer prevention and health literacy levels of Guangxi urban residents are low and the development of cancer prevention awareness and early detection, early diagnosis, early treatment awareness is unbalanced. Gender, household income and profession are three independent factors influencing cancer prevention and health literacy.