David W. Baker1, Julie A. Gazmararian1, Mark V. Williams1, Tracy Scott1, Ruth M. Parker1, Diane Green1, Li Xiong1, Jennifer L. Peel1
1David W. Baker is with the Center for Health Care Research and Policy and the Department of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University at MetroHealth Medical Center; and the Department of Epidemiology–Biostatistics, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Cleveland, Ohio. Julie A. Gazmararian, Tracy Scott, Diane Green, Junling Ren, and Jennifer Peel are with US Quality Algorithms Center for Health Care Research, Atlanta, Ga. Mark V. Williams and Ruth M. Parker are with the Department of...
Tóm tắt
Objectives. This study analyzed whether inadequate functional health literacy is an independent risk factor for hospital admission.Methods. We studied a prospective cohort of 3260 Medicare managed care enrollees.Results. Of the participants, 29.5% were hospitalized. The crude relative risk (RR) of hospitalization was higher for individuals with inadequate literacy (n = 800; RR = 1.43; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.24, 1.65) and marginal literacy (n = 366; RR = 1.33; 95% CI = 1.09, 1.61) than for those with adequate literacy (n = 2094). In multivariate analysis, the adjusted relative risk of hospital admission was 1.29 (95% CI = 1.07, 1.55) for individuals with inadequate literacy and 1.21 (95% CI = 0.97, 1.50) for those with marginal literacy.Conclusions. Inadequate literacy was an independent risk factor for hospital admission among elderly managed care enrollees. (Am J Public Health. 2002;92:1278–1283)
