Health literacy among emerging adults

While emerging adults tend to score high in measures of functional health literacy, or the ability to understand, find, and use health information in a practical sense, they report that they struggle with health literacy problems. The discrepancy between what emerging adults score on the “gold standards” of health literacy instruments versus their lived experiences demonstrates a ceiling effect of these measures in this demographic. To address this, a new health literacy measure, the Health Literacy Scale for Emerging Adults, or the HLSEA, was created. The goalsof this study were to validate a new instrument for the emerging adult demographic, examine what health domains emerging adults perform well in, and in what domains they struggle in. Emerging adults also tend to engage in risky health behaviors, some of which, such as smoking, drinking, or poor nutrition, can lead to negative outcomes later in life. As health literacy is a modifiable skill, this study is also interested in the possible outcomes related to health literacy variability. Participants (n= 53) completed the HLSEA, as well as pre-existing valid and reliable scale of the Short Test of Functional Health Literacy (S-TOFHLA) and a general health knowledge questionnaire, the Health Literacy Questionnaire (HLQ) which measures perceptions regarding health literacy ability, and a measure of health promotion behavior (HPLP-II). Results showed convergent validity with the S-TOFHLA and divergent validity with the health knowledge questionnaire and the HLQ. These results indicate that the HLSEA did measure actual health literacy ability, not perceptions of skills related to health literacy or general health knowledge. Regarding health promotion behavior, the HLSEA significantly, positively, predicted results on the HPLP-II, even when controlling for demographic variables of age, race, and gender. These results in whole provide support to the argument that a new psychometric tool for evaluating the health literacy of emerging adults is not only needed, but possible.