IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/medema/v34y2014i1p107-115.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Health Numeracy

Author

Listed:
  • Helen Levy
  • Peter A. Ubel
  • Amanda J. Dillard
  • David R. Weir
  • Angela Fagerlin

Abstract

Background and Objective. Existing research concludes that measures of general numeracy can be used to predict individuals’ ability to assess health risks. We posit that the domain in which questions are posed affects the ability to perform mathematical tasks, raising the possibility of a separate construct of “health numeracy†that is distinct from general numeracy. The objective was to determine whether older adults’ ability to perform simple math depends on domain. Methods. Community-based participants completed 4 math questions posed in 3 different domains: a health domain, a financial domain, and a pure math domain. Participants were 962 individuals aged 55 and older, representative of the community-dwelling US population over age 54. Results. We found that respondents performed significantly worse when questions were posed in the health domain (54% correct) than in either the pure math domain (66% correct) or the financial domain (63% correct). Our experimental measure of numeracy consisted of only 4 questions, and it is possible that the apparent effect of domain is specific to the mathematical tasks that these questions require. Conclusions. These results suggest that health numeracy is strongly related to general numeracy but that the 2 constructs may not be the same. Further research is needed into how different aspects of general numeracy and health numeracy translate into actual medical decisions.

Suggested Citation

  • Helen Levy & Peter A. Ubel & Amanda J. Dillard & David R. Weir & Angela Fagerlin, 2014. "Health Numeracy," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 34(1), pages 107-115, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:medema:v:34:y:2014:i:1:p:107-115
    DOI: 10.1177/0272989X13493144
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0272989X13493144
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0272989X13493144?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:medema:v:34:y:2014:i:1:p:107-115. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.