Socioeconomic inequalities in relation to health and nutrition literacy in Greece

Abstract

Poor health literacy (HL) is associated with poor health behaviours and outcomes. The aim of the study was to investigate the effect of socioeconomic status on HL and nutrition literacy (NL) in Greece. This is a cross-sectional study which took place in Attica, Greece. 1281 individuals, aged ≥18 years of both sexes, participated. The European Health Literacy Questionnaire and the Greek version of the Nutrition Literacy Scale were used. Linear regression analysis revealed that education was significantly positively associated with HL (p = 0.002) and medium annual income was significantly associated with higher HL (p = 0.024), in contrast to low annual income. Education (p < 0.001) was significantly positively associated with NL. Unskilled particpants had lower NL compared to skilled paricipants (p = 0.021) and participants with medium annual income had significantly higher NL (p = 0.003) in comparison to participants with low annual income. Socioeconomic inequalities seem to negatively associate with HL and NL in Greece.

Keywords:

• Health literacy
• nutrition literacy
• SES
• Greece

Acknowledgement

Special thanks to all the participants for their valuable contribution to the study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

Τhe research work was supported by the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation (HFRI) and the General Secretariat for Research and Technology (GSRT), under the HFRI PhD Fellowship grant (GA. no. 949).