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Examining health literacy disparities in the United States: a third look at the National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL)

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Public Health, September 2016
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (97th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (96th percentile)

Mentioned by

news
5 news outlets
blogs
4 blogs
policy
3 policy sources
twitter
32 X users
googleplus
1 Google+ user

Citations

dimensions_citation
167 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
288 Mendeley
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Title
Examining health literacy disparities in the United States: a third look at the National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL)
Published in
BMC Public Health, September 2016
DOI 10.1186/s12889-016-3621-9
Pubmed ID
Authors

R. V. Rikard, Maxine S. Thompson, Julie McKinney, Alison Beauchamp

Abstract

In the United States, disparities in health literacy parallel disparities in health outcomes. Our research contributes to how diverse indicators of social inequalities (i.e., objective social class, relational social class, and social resources) contribute to understanding disparities in health literacy. We analyze data on respondents 18 years of age and older (N = 14,592) from the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) restricted access data set. A series of weighted Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression models estimate the association between respondent's demographic characteristics, socioeconomic status (SES), relational social class, social resources and an Item Response Theory (IRT) based health literacy measure. Our findings are consistent with previous research on the social and SES determinants of health literacy. However, our findings reveal the importance of relational social status for understanding health literacy disparities in the United States. Objective indicators of social status are persistent and robust indicators of health literacy. Measures of relational social status such as civic engagement (i.e., voting, volunteering, and library use) are associated with higher health literacy levels net of objective resources. Social resources including speaking English and marital status are associated with higher health literacy levels. Relational indicators of social class are related to health literacy independent of objective social class indicators. Civic literacy (e.g., voting and volunteering) are predictors of health literacy and offer opportunities for health intervention. Our findings support the notion that health literacy is a social construct and suggest the need to develop a theoretically driven conceptual definition of health literacy that includes a civic literacy component.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 32 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 288 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Netherlands 1 <1%
Unknown 287 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 46 16%
Researcher 29 10%
Student > Ph. D. Student 27 9%
Student > Doctoral Student 24 8%
Student > Bachelor 17 6%
Other 51 18%
Unknown 94 33%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Nursing and Health Professions 53 18%
Medicine and Dentistry 48 17%
Social Sciences 26 9%
Psychology 18 6%
Computer Science 6 2%
Other 34 12%
Unknown 103 36%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 88. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 29 September 2023.
All research outputs
#490,539
of 25,584,565 outputs
Outputs from BMC Public Health
#458
of 17,708 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#9,326
of 331,420 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Public Health
#13
of 361 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,584,565 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 98th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 17,708 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 14.5. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 97% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 331,420 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 97% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 361 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 96% of its contemporaries.