Health literacy among different age groups in Germany: results of a cross-sectional survey

BMC Public Health

Table 4 Factors associated with limited health literacy* stratified by age groups – results of the multivariate logistic regression**

	15–29			30–45			46–64			65–99
	OR	95 % CI	p-value	OR	95 % CI	p-value	OR	95 % CI	p-value	OR	95 % CI	p-value
Gender
Male	0.87	0.56–1.34	0.518	1.12	0.74–1.68	0.602	1.11	0.78–1.58	0.562	0.96	0.61–1.50	0.861
Female	ref
Educational level
Low	1.05	0.55–2.01	0.872	1.40	0.75–2.62	0.293	1.55	0.92–2.61	0.101	1.16	0.60–2.27	0.661
Medium	0.72	0.38–1.36	0.309	1.14	0.66–1.97	0.631	0.83	0.52–1.32	0.424	0.91	0.49–1.71	0.776
High	ref
Migrant background
Yes	1.79	0.84–3.82	0.133	3.22	1.43–7.24	0.005	2.14	1.03–4.47	0.042	1.12	0.46–2.74	0.798
No	ref
Functional health literacy
Limited	1.84	0.94–3.60	0.074	1.87	1.00–3.49	0.050	2.01	1.27–3.16	0.003	2.25	1.35–3.75	0.002
Adequate	ref
Social status
Low	3.08	1.43–6.63	0.004	9.31	3.56–24.34	<0.001	4.61	2.22–9.57	<0.001	4.97	2.16–11.43	<0.001
Medium	1.27	0.76–2.13	0.355	1.90	1.15–3.16	0.013	1.68	1.05–2.70	0.030	2.28	1.19–4.38	0.014
High	ref
Doctor visits
0–2	ref
2–5	2.14	1.22–3.75	0.008	5.51	3.14–9.66	<0.001	2.11	1.42–3.14	<0.001	2.51	1.51–4.18	<0.001
6 or more	2.23	0.60–8.24	0.229	3.83	1.83–8.03	<0.001	3.44	2.07–5.73	<0.001	3.22	1.85–5.60	<0.001

OR > 1 means increased likelihood of having limited health literacy, significant differences are printed in bold (p<0.05)
*measured as perceived difficulty to perform health information tasks
**adjusted for all variables in the models

ISSN: 1471-2458