A national survey of ambient air pollution health literacy among adult residents of Taiwan

• Published in: BMC public health Vol. 21; no. 1; pp. 1 - 1604
• Main Authors: Hou, Wen-Hsuan, Huang, Yi-Chin, Lu, Chien-Yeh, Chen, I-Chen, Lee, Pei-Chen, Lin, Ming-Yeng, Wang, Yu-Chen, Sulistyorini, Lilis, Li, Chung-Yi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London BioMed Central Ltd 31-08-2021; BioMed Central; BMC
• Subjects: Adults; Air pollution; Air quality management; Ambient air pollution, environmental health literacy; Cell phones; Cellular telephones; Community health; Community health services; Cross-sectional studies; Data processing; Disease prevention; Education; Environmental health; Geographical variations; Health literacy; Health promotion; Information processing; Linear regression model; Outdoor air quality; Pollution surveys; Public opinion; Regression analysis; Regression models; Surveys; Taiwan
• ISSN: 1471-2458; 1471-2458
• DOI: 10.1186/s12889-021-11658-z

Abstract
Objective
To investigate the level of and covariates associated with ambient air pollution health literacy (AAPHL) among adult residents of Taiwan.
Methods
With a cross-sectional study design, we conducted telephone interviews using a Chinese version AAPHL scale, which consisted of 24 items assessing 12 subdomains of AAPHL formed by 4 information processing competence matrices (i.e.,
access
,
understand
,
appraise
, and
apply
) and 3 health contexts (i.e.,
healthcare
,
disease prevention
, and
health promotion
). The AAPHL was with the lowest and highest score at 1 to 4, respectively. Between September and November 2020, a sample of 1017 and 280 adults was successfully interviewed via home phones and mobile phones, respectively. We employed multiple linear regression models to identify covariates significantly associated with overall and 4 matric-specific AAPHL scores.
Results
The mean and standard deviation (±SD) of overall AAPHL score was considered as moderate at 2.90 (±0.56), with the highest and lowest metric-specific score for “
apply
” (3.07 ± 0.59) and “
appraise
” (2.75 ± 0.66). Lower education was significantly associated with a lower overall score; and living with children < 12 years and single were both significantly associated with higher overall scores. We also noted a significant geographic variation in overall score in which people living in the east/remote islands had highest scores.
Conclusions
People in Taiwan had only moderate level of AAPHL; and covariates including education, living arrangement, marital status, and area of living were significantly associated with AAPHL. These covariates should be considered in future educational interventions aiming to improve the AAPHL in the community.