This study's purpose was to investigate the level of health literacy, cardiovascular disease (CVD) knowledge and diabetes prevention knowledge, as well as the relationship among them, in the Middle Eastern population. A survey was conducted among the Middle Eastern patients of a free health clinic to obtain information on the health literacy and knowledge of these patients. A total of 73 surveys were collected and analyzed in this study. Print literacy and numeracy were strongly correlated with each other (r=0.4949, P<0.0001). Both print literacy and numeracy were significantly correlated with the Diabetes Prevention knowledge score (print literacy: r=0.2764, P=0.0179; numeracy: r=0.4110, P=0.0003), but not with the CVD knowledge score. The Diabetes Prevention knowledge score had a high correlation with the CVD knowledge score (r=0.6980, P<0.0001). Furthermore, print literacy was significantly associated with self-reported health status (r=0.2637, P=0.0242). Our results support that health literacy was associated with some disease-specific knowledge and self-reported health status in the Middle Eastern population. Future research that includes measures of health behaviors and objective measure of health status could help provide more insight into the interactions between these variables in this understudied population.
C. Kawata: None. L. Jiang: None.
