Health literacy status of 638 residents in Pinggu District of Beijing City.

[Objective]To assess the health literacy levels of residents in Pinggu District of Beijing City,and analyze the distributional difference of health literacy among different populations from 3 dimensions and 5 categories.[Methods]Stratified cluster sampling method was adopted to select 638 residents from 3 occupations of agriculture,forestry,animal husbandry and fisheries; hotel and restaurant industry; and the other service industries. The unified questionnaire,which designed by Beijing CDC,was adopted to perform health literacy survey. [Results]The assessment results of residents in Pinggu District: 53 residents ( 8. 3% ) had health literacy. 160 ( 25. 1% ) knew basic knowledge and concepts of health literacy according to 3 dimensions of the macro level; 51( 8. 0% ) had health literacy of lifestyle and behavior; 81( 12. 7% ) had health literacy skills. According to the 5 categories of major health problem in China,128( 20. 1% ) had scientific view of health; 148 ( 23. 2% ) had infectious disease prevention literacy; 24 ( 3. 8% ) had chronic disease prevention literacy; 163( 25. 5% ) had safety and first aid literacy; 14 ( 2. 2% ) had basic health literacy.[Conclusion]The overall level of health literacy of residents surveyed in Pinggu District is slightly higher than the overall level of health literacy of Chinese residents( 6. 48% ) . Of 5 categories of health literacy,the basic health literacy is at the lowest level,followed by chronic disease prevention literacy. It is necessary to advocate and actively promote health promotion and health education in order to improve people’s health literacy levels.