Sandra M. Brown|Julie O. Culver|Kathryn Osann|Deborah J. MacDonald|Sharon Sand|Andrea A. Thornton|Marcia Grant|Deborah J. Bowen|Kelly Metcalfe|Harry Burke|Mark E. Robson|Susan Friedman|Jeffrey N. Weitzel
Health literacy, numeracy, and interpretation of graphical breast cancer risk estimates
Saddleback Memorial Medical Center|University of California, Irvine|City of Hope|University of California, Irvine|City of Hope|City of Hope|City of Hope|City of Hope|Boston University|University of Toronto|George Washington University|Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center|Facing Our Risk of Cancer Empowered|City of Hope
health literacy numeracy necessary understand health information make informed medical decisions study explored relationships among health literacy numeracy ability accurately interpret graphical representations breast cancer risk participants n 120 recruited facing risk cancer empowered force membership health literacy numeracy assessed participants interpreted graphs depicting breast cancer risk made hypothetical treatment decisions rated preference graphs participants caucasian 98 completed least one year college 93 fiftytwo percent breast cancer 86 family history breast cancer 57 deleterious brca gene mutation mean health literacy score 6566 mean numeracy score 46 mean graphicacy score 912 education numeracy significantly associated accurate graph interpretation r 042 p 0001 r 065 p 0001 respectively however adjusting numeracy multivariate linear regression education added little prediction graphicacy r2 041 versus 042 respectively highly healthliterate population numeracy predictive graphicacy effective risk communication strategies consider impact numeracy graphicacy patient understanding