Healthy Lifestyle Practices: Does Health Literacy Matter?

10.30207/AHLA.202312.0052

Sri Handayani；Kismi Mubarokah；Nurjanah；Aprianti；Nor Amalia Muthoaroh

Healthy lifestyle ； Health literacy ； Urban population

The Proceeding of the 9th AHLA International Health Literacy Conference: Health Literacy and Social Resilience

2023（2023 / 12 / 01）

54 - 54

英文

Background: Evidence of the relationship between healthy lifestyle practices (HLP) and health literacy (HL) in Indonesia's urban population is still limited. This study aimed to explore the correlation between health literacy and healthy lifestyle practices among urban population in Semarang, Indonesia. Method: This cross-sectional survey took place in an urban setting community in Semarang. The study included 146 respondents chosen by purposive sampling with inclusion criteria: the age of more than 17 years, speaking Bahasa, being part of the urban community, and being able to follow the survey. Healthy lifestyle questionnaires were adopted from Indonesia's national health survey, which measured alcohol consumption, high-risk food consumption, fruit-vegetable consumption, and physical exercise. Health literacy was measured using HLS-EU-SQ10-UDN. Correlation analysis with the Rank Spearman test (for numeric data) and chi-square (for categorical data) was applied to measure the HL and HLP. Results: The average score of HL was 38.6, with minimum and maximum scores were 23.3 and 50, respectively. More than half of the participants have sufficient HL level (61,6%). Alcohol consumption was found to be very low (0.7%). 71,2% reported having a low impact on physical exercise, while only 19.9% had a high impact on physical activity in the past seven days. The consumption of sugary drinks was high, with 31% having one drink per day and 16.6% more than once a day. At the same time, respondents reported having fruit and vegetable consumption at least four and five days a week, respectively. HL was positively correlated with fruit-vegetable consumption practices (P=0.048, r=0.163) and alcohol consumption (P=0.001). Conclusion: Comprehensive education on healthy lifestyle practices still needs to be done. Health literacy can be targeted as an intervention to increase HLP, especially for disease prevention and control.