Analysis on health literacy status of urban residents in Xi'an City

Objective To understand the status of health literacy among urban residents in Xi'an City,explore the related influencing factors and provide evidence for establishing intervention measures on health education.Methods A total of 2400 persons aged 15 to 69 years old were selected from urban area of Xi'an City by multistage stratified random sampling method,and a questionnaire of2008 health literacy survey of Chinese citizenswas used to collect information.Results The overall level of health literacy among urban residents was 8.1% in Xi'an City.The levels of parts of basic knowledge and concept,healthy lifestyle behavior,basic skills were 12.8%,16.5% and 9.5%,respectively.The health literacy levels were significantly different among different age,education level,occupation and average monthly incoming(P0.05).Conclusion The overall level of health literacy was low among urban residents in Xi'an City.The main factors that influenced health literacy were age,education and occupation.It is necessary to implement the appropriate intervention measures to improve health literacy of residents.