Social determinants of health, nutrition, and mental health literacy among college students in Indonesia

Dien Anshari ； Eka Noviana Nasriyanto ； Jusephina Yusuf ； Silmy Kaaffah ； Nadia Hana Qatrunnada ； Ahmad Syafiq

《第六屆亞洲健康識能國際會議》 預刊文章 Pp. 1-3

https://doi.org/10.6881/AHLA.201810.SO10

摘要

Background: Health outcomes are thought to be determined by health literacy (i.e., one's motivation and ability to gain access to understanding and using information by promoting and maintaining good health) and other social determinants of health, such as gender, income, education, and residential status. However, research on the association between health literacy and social determinants of health among Indonesians is still lacking. Objective: This study aimed to assess the association between social determinants and three measures of health literacy (i.e., general health literacy, nutrition literacy, and mental health literacy) among first-year undergraduate students from the Universitas Indonesia. Method: Data for this cross-sectional study came from an online survey designed to garner a purposive sample of 373 first-year college students from the Universitas Indonesia. Social determinants were measured from gender (male/female), income status (low, moderate, high), high school origin (rural/city), academic clusters (i.e., science and technology, social and humanity, and health sciences), residential status (live with family or not), foreign language skill (i.e., none, one, more than one) and ethnic identity (i.e., non-Java, Java, mixed Java). Three adapted instruments were used to measure the three main dependent variables: health literacy (i.e., HLS-EU-Q16), nutrition literacy (i.e., AAHLS), and mental health literacy (i.e., MHLS). Multivariate regressions were used to assess the association of social determinants on each of the three health literacy measures. Results: Gender, ethnic identity, and residential status have no significant association with all the three measures. Income status and high school origin have significant positive associations with mental health literacy, but not with other dependent variables. Compare to students from the cluster of science and technology, students from the cluster of health sciences have higher score on all the three measures, while students from the cluster of social and humanities have lower score on nutrition literacy, but higher score on mental health literacy. Compare to students who have no foreign language skill, those who have one foreign language skill got a better score on nutrition literacy and mental health literacy, while those who master two or more foreign languages got higher score on all the three outcomes. Conclusion: Intervention to improve health literacy among college students should focus on those from non-health sciences academic clusters and those who have limited foreign language skills. Future study is warranted to gain deeper understanding on the association of social determinants and various foci of health literacy.

關鍵字

social determinants ； health communication ； health education