Health literacy demand and attitudes toward COVID-19 prevention measures among Korean American older adults and their caregivers

BMC Public Health. 2024 Oct 23;24(1):2941. doi: 10.1186/s12889-024-20427-7.

Abstract

Background: Health literacy has been linked to positive attitudes toward COVID-19 preventive measures among adolescents and young- or middle-aged adult populations. This study examined the relationship between health literacy and attitudes toward COVID-19 preventive measures among non-English speaking Korean American older adults and their caregivers. The study additionally investigated how sociodemographic characteristics were associated with attitudes.

Methods: COVID-19 survey data was collected from potential participants for an ongoing randomized controlled trial involving both Korean American older adults and their caregivers in the Baltimore-Washington and the New York Metropolitan areas (ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03909347). Korean American older adults with normal cognition and their caregivers were allowed to participate in the survey. We used latent profile analysis to find unique clusters of participants with a similar pattern of responses to attitudes toward COVID-19 preventive measures. Based on the analysis, we employed multinomial logistic regression to investigate how health literacy and sociodemographic characteristics were associated with the clusters.

Results: We found three clusters based on participant responses to COVID-19 preventive measures-Positive, Negative, or Mixed. Health literacy was not associated with COVID-19 related attitudes in the study sample. Men were 2.37 times more likely to be categorized as Mixed than having Positive Attitudes compared to women. The odds of a person living in the New York metropolitan area being categorized as having Mixed Attitudes compared to Positive Attitudes were also 2.67 times more than for a person living in the Baltimore-Washington area.

Conclusions: Differences in attitudes toward COVID-19 preventive measures were found among sociodemographic variables but not health literacy. Investigating what information channels or methods drive perception of public health information such as COVID-19 may help identify effective dissemination strategies for non-English speaking Korean older adults.

Keywords: COVID-19; Caregivers; Health literacy; Korean American; Older adults.

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Aged
  • Aged, 80 and over
  • Asian* / psychology
  • Asian* / statistics & numerical data
  • Baltimore
  • COVID-19* / epidemiology
  • COVID-19* / prevention & control
  • COVID-19* / psychology
  • Caregivers* / psychology
  • Caregivers* / statistics & numerical data
  • Female
  • Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice
  • Health Literacy* / statistics & numerical data
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic
  • Surveys and Questionnaires

Associated data

  • ClinicalTrials.gov/NCT03909347