Global Health Literacy Summit 2021

Global Health Literacy Summit 2021
03 - 05 October 2021
Virtual

Abstract

Title Socio-economic disparity and ethnic difference of Health Literacy among multi-ethnic suburban population in Malaysia
Type Poster Presentation Only
Theme Global Health Literacy Summit 2021
Topic Others

Authors

Main Author Sanpagavalli Doraimuthu¹ ⁵
Presenting Author Sanpagavalli Doraimuthu¹ ⁵
Co-Author Tin Tin Su² Maznah Dahlui¹ ³ Desiree Schliemann⁴ Michael Donnelly⁴ Nor Saleha Ibrahim tamin⁵ saunthari Somasundaram⁶

Authors' Institution

Department / Institution / Country 1. Centre for Population Health (CePH), Department of Social and Preventive Medicine / University Malaya / Malaysia¹ South East Asia Community Observatory (SEACO) & Global Public Health, Jeffery Cheah School of Medicine and Health Sciences / Monash University Malaysia / Malaysia² Department of Health Policy and Management / University Airlangga / Indonesia³ Centre for Public Health and UKCRC Centre of Excellence for Public Health / Queen’s University Belfast / United Kingdom⁴ Non Communicable Disease / Ministry Of health / Malaysia⁵ National Cancer Society / National Cancer Society, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia / Malaysia⁶

Content

Abstract Content (abstracts should be written in Size 11 font, Arial font style) Introduction Adequate health literacy (HL) empowers people to be able to read, obtain, comprehend and process health-related information from various sources to assist in making sound decisions pertaining to their health condition. Aim To determine the level of HL and factors associated with HL Methods A questionnaire survey was conducted among randomly selected community-dwelling adults in Rawang, a suburban area in Selangor state, Malaysia from January to March 2018. The questionnaire assessed the sociodemographic and general HL level in population by using 6 items European HL questionnaire. HL was divided into 3 categories: < 2 is inadequate HL, > 2 - < 3 is limited HL, and > 3 is sufficient HL. HL was finally dichotomized into “sufficient” and “insufficient” categories by combining limited HL to inadequate HL categories. Results Analysis was carried out on 954 respondents (54.1% Malay, 11.5% Chinese, 27.7% Indian, and 6.7% Others). The mean for HL was 2.88 (0.60)Bivariate analysis showed a significant association between all sociodemographic variables tested, except gender (p<0.25). Multivariate analysis elucidated a significant association between education level, ethnicity, and monthly income with sufficient HL (p<0.05) after adjusting for other variables. Respondents with secondary (AOR: 2.75, 95 % CI: 1.67 – 4.53, p < 0.001) and tertiary education (AOR: 8.07, 95% CI: 3.92 – 16.6) qualification has significantly higher odds of having sufficient HL compared to those with no formal education. Indians have higher odds of sufficient HL after adjusting for other variables (AOR: 2.07, 95% CI: 1.44 – 2.99, p < 0.001) compared to Malays. Those with monthly income between RM 4000 – RM 10 000 (AOR: 1.71, 95% CI: 1.05-2.78, p = 0.03) tend to have higher odds with HL compared to those with monthly income less than RM 4000. Conclusion HL must be advocated to people from lower socio-economic backgrounds to balance the striking disparities of health in Malaysia. The tailor-made HL education should be targeted to particular ethnic groups to raise the community with adequate health knowledge and awareness to assist in proper decision-making related to preventive health.

Keywords: colorectal cancer; health literacy, Malaysia
Requires Audio or Video system for Presentation?: No