The relationship between health literacy and media literacy: a survey in Iran

Introduction & Objective: Media literacy plays an important role in the search and selection of valid information and resources about health. Features such as informational skills and their selection are common between two concepts of health literacy and media literacy. Therefore, the present study was conducted to investigate the relationship between health literacy and media literacy in Kerman. Materials and Method: This is a cross-sectional study. The statistical population is all citizens over 18 years in Kerman, which had at least reading and writing skills. 700 citizens were selected by random cluster method. The research instrument was a demographic questionnaire and a 33-item questionnaire for health literacy for Iranian adults (HELIA) and a 20-item questionnaire of media literacy of Falsafi et al., (2014). After collecting the questionnaires, the data were analyzed using SPSS version 25. Results: The mean total score of health literacy in citizens was 65.62 ± 13.80 (n = 700). Health literacy of 53.2% (n = 372) of the citizens was insufficient. Mean score of media literacy among Kerman citizens was 9.77 ± 69.41. Media literacy of 38.6% (n = 270) of the citizens was average and it was high in 61.3% (n = 429). The results also indicate that there was a significant positive relationship between health literacy and media literacy. Conclusion: Considering that media literacy emphasizes the way information is acquired prior to selection, the development and increase of media literacy in the citizens can also lead to the increased health literacy. One of the duties of health care providers is to increase community health literacy. Considering the various factors influencing health literacy, we can make more effective interventions to increase the health literacy of the community.

Keywords:

health , health literacy , media literacy