Sarah J. Schrauben|Douglas J. Wiebe
Health literacy assessment in developing countries: a case study in Zambia
Pennsylvania Hospital|University of Pennsylvania|University of Pennsylvania
education literacy key determinants health necessarily ensure health literacy hl institute medicines iom definition hl widely accepted consensus constituent parts developing practical measure hl priority challenging aimed derive measure hl data demographic health surveys dhs program administered united states agency international development usaid includes items representing domains hl defined iom accessed data dhs conducted zambia 2007 applied factor analysis methods eight survey questions corresponded elements iom definition derived single indicator evaluated reliability validity derived dichotomous measure hl demonstrated reliability cronbachs 068 good content validity importantly composed elements described iom including capacity obtain interpret understand health information make appropriate health decisions 465 males 245 females high literacy hl varied considerably across subgroups first study derive robust indicator hl following iom definition large national sample applying evaluating method future studies researchers use approach dhs datasets measure hl additional countries ultimately test hl relates health outcomes