40 - The Role of Health Literacy in Vaccination Disparities: Do Patients Understand the Health Messages?

Background: Numerous public health campaigns are organized with the goal of improving immunization rates.  However, vaccination uptake remains low among certain racial/ethnic minority groups including Hispanic patients.  The level of health literacy (HL), ability to recognize the words used, may impact patients’ understanding of health-related messages and consequently health behavior and vaccination.

Methods: We conducted a HL survey among adult female attendees of a health fair in an underserved area of Los Angeles.  Attendees visiting a youth education booth were surveyed using an electronic tool. Respondents were surveyed on their familiarity with and recognition of specific words including: measles, shingles, pertussis, hepatitis, meningitis, stroke, diabetes, pneumonia, and human papilloma virus (HPV). Comparisons were analyzed using chi-squared tests.

Results: Forty-three women (n=28 Hispanic; n=15 Non-Hispanic) completed the survey.  The mean ages of Hispanic and non-Hispanic (predominantly Caucasian and Asian) respondents were 35.4 ±14 years and 29.9 ±12 years, respectively.  A significantly lower percentage of Hispanic vs. Non-Hispanic women reported recognition of words associated with vaccine-preventable diseases: “meningitis” (15% vs. 60%, p< .01), “hepatitis” (18% vs. 69%, p< .01), and “HPV” (33% vs 67%, p< .05).  Substantially lower recognition was also reported for “pneumonia”, although this did not reach statistical significance (46% vs 77%, p=.06).  The percentage reporting recognition of “diabetes” did not differ significantly between groups (68% vs 60%, p=0.43). 

Conclusion: Immunization campaigns often use words that patients may not understand, potentially impacting patients’ relationship with the healthcare system and health behavior change.  We found a lower level of recognition (health literacy) of words associated with vaccine-preventable diseases among Hispanic vs. Non-Hispanic women attending a community health fair.  These findings have implications for developing culturally-tailored communication tools and educational strategies using a language easily recognized by a specific community to help reduce racial disparities in vaccination uptake.