Numeracy, Health Numeracy, and Older Immigrants’ Primary Language: An Observation-Oriented Exploration

ABSTRACT

Health information is often provided in number formats not equally present in all languages. We explored the relation between immigrants’ primary language and comprehension of context-free and health numeric information presented in English. The study compared speakers of Kikuyu (Kenya) and Mandarin (China), two languages that differ in the quantity of numeric concepts in their structures. Observation-oriented analysis was performed to determine how accurately the observed data conform to language group. We show how such analysis compares to standard statistical analysis. We argue that primary language contributes to some of the differences in numeracy and health numeracy.

Acknowledgments

We are thankful to Steve Brown and James W. Grice for their insightful comments on a previous version of this article.