Full text

Turn on search term navigation

© 2024. This work is licensed under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.

Abstract

Background:Health literacy involves individuals’ knowledge, personal skills, and confidence to take action to evaluate and appraise health-related information and improve their health or that of their community.

Objective:This study aimed to analyze the association between health literacy and attitude toward vaccines, adjusted with other factors.

Methods:We used the SLAVACO Wave 3, a survey conducted in December 2021 among a sample of 2022 individuals, representative of the French adult population. We investigated factors associated with the attitude toward vaccines using respondents’ different sociodemographic data, health literacy levels, and the health care system confidence levels using a multinomial logistic regression analysis.

Results:Among the participants, 440.4 (21.8%) were classified as “distrustful of vaccines in general,” 729.2 (36.1%) were “selectively hesitant,” and 852.4 (42.2%) were “nonhesitant.” In our model, the level of health literacy was not statistically different between the “distrustful of vaccines in general” and the “selectively hesitant” (P=.48), but it was associated with being a “nonhesitant” (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 1.86, 95% CI 1.25-2.76). The confidence in the health care system was a strong predictor for a “nonhesitant” attitude toward vaccines (aOR 12.4, 95% CI 7.97-19.2). We found a positive correlation of 0.34 (P<.001) between health literacy and confidence in the health care system, but the interaction term between health literacy and health care system confidence was not significant in our model.

Conclusions:Health literacy was associated with a “nonhesitant” attitude toward vaccines. The findings demonstrated that health literacy and confidence in the health care system are modestly correlated. Therefore, to tackle the subject of vaccine hesitancy, the main focus should be on increasing the population’s confidence and on increasing their health literacy levels or providing vaccine information addressing the needs of less literate citizens.

Details

Title
Health Literacy and Health Care System Confidence as Determinants of Attitudes to Vaccines in France: Representative Cross-Sectional Study
Author
Khoury, Georges  VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Ward, Jeremy K  VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Mancini, Julien  VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Gagneux-Brunon, Amandine  VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Liem Binh Luong Nguyen  VIAFID ORCID Logo 
First page
e45837
Section
Cross-Sectional Studies in Public Health
Publication year
2024
Publication date
2024
Publisher
JMIR Publications
e-ISSN
23692960
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
3053994567
Copyright
© 2024. This work is licensed under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.