Doris Schaeffer|Eva-Maria Berens|Dominique Vogt
Health Literacy in the German Population
Bielefeld University
persons low health literacy difficulty dealing health care system understanding healthrelated information studies multiple countries shown low health literacy negatively affects health healthrelated illnessrelated behavior utilization health care resources data available till health literacy germany sparse goal study acquire representative data health literacy german populationin crosssectional study collected data representative group 2000 persons age 15 germany means computerassisted personal interviews capi based long version questionnaire used european health literacy survey hlseuq47 sociodemographic data also collectedthe respondents representative sample german population 543 found limited health literacy multiple logistic regression revealed associations limited health literacy advanced age odds ratio 183 95 confidence interval ci 136 248 immigrant background 187 127 275 low selfassessed social status 525 357 772 low functional literacy 194 149 252the low health literacy many germans impair communication doctors patients exacerbate existing problems health policy future greater effort made foster health literacy make healthrelated information patients easier understand intensify research field health literacy