Socio-demographic determinants of infectious disease-related health literacy and knowledge in Armenia: Results from a nationwide survey

Introduction: The success of health education programs heavily depends on the individuals' ability to comprehend information and apply it when making decisions regarding health. Low health literacy can lead to poor health in the context of both chronic and infectious diseases, as it influences a range of health-related behaviors. Little is known about infectious disease-related health literacy in Armenia and countries of similar socio-economic profiles. We aimed to quantify the levels of infectious disease-related health literacy and knowledge among the Armenian population and explore the underlying socio-economic factors.

Materials and methods: We conducted a nationwide phone survey among 3483 adults selected via stratified two-stage probability proportional to size sampling in 2021. Descriptive statistics, simple and multivariable regression were used for the analysis.

Results: The average age of respondents was 49.5 years. The majority were female (71.0%) and had at least 12 years of schooling (70.5%). The mean literacy score was 5.64 out of 7 (SD:1.06). The mean infectious disease knowledge score was 2.48 out of 4 (SD:1.19). Younger age, female gender, higher level of education, city residence, being employed, and having higher monthly expenditures were associated with higher mean scores of infectious disease-related health literacy and knowledge. In multivariable linear regression analysis, all the socio-demographic characteristics remained significant for both dependent variables.

Conclusions: The study results revealed population groups with a higher infectious disease-related health literacy and knowledge. Interventions should focus on groups lagging behind to engage them in proper prevention practices to protect themselves and improve health status of Armenian population.