Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT: Background
The Spanish-speaking population in the U.S. is large and growing and is known to have lower health literacy than the English-speaking population. Less is known about the health numeracy of this population due to a lack of health numeracy measures in Spanish.Objective
we aimed to develop and validate a short and easy to use measure of health numeracy for Spanish-speaking adults: the Spanish Numeracy Understanding in Medicine Instrument (Spanish-NUMi).Design
Items were generated based on qualitative studies in English- and Spanish-speaking adults and translated into Spanish using a group translation and consensus process. Candidate items for the Spanish NUMi were selected from an eight-item validated English Short NUMi. Differential Item Functioning (DIF) was conducted to evaluate equivalence between English and Spanish items. Cronbach's alpha was computed as a measure of reliability and a Pearson's correlation was used to evaluate the association between test scores and the Spanish Test of Functional Health Literacy (S-TOFHLA) and education level.Participants
Two-hundred and thirty-two Spanish-speaking Chicago residents were included in the study.Key results
The study population was diverse in age, gender, and level of education and 70 % reported Mexico as their country of origin. Two items of the English eight-item Short NUMi demonstrated DIF and were dropped. The resulting six-item test had a Cronbach's alpha of 0.72, a range of difficulty using classical test statistics (percent correct: 0.48 to 0.86), and adequate discrimination (item-total score correlation: 0.34-0.49). Scores were positively correlated with print literacy as measured by the S- TOFHLA (r?=?0.67; p?ConclusionsThe Spanish NUMi is a reliable and valid measure of important numerical concepts used in communicating health information.
SUBMITTER: Jacobs EA
PROVIDER: S-EPMC5071279 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Nov
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Jacobs Elizabeth A EA Walker Cindy M CM Miller Tamara T Fletcher Kathlyn E KE Ganschow Pamela S PS Imbert Diana D O'Connell Maria M Neuner Joan M JM Schapira Marilyn M MM
Journal of general internal medicine 20160616 11
<h4>Background</h4>The Spanish-speaking population in the U.S. is large and growing and is known to have lower health literacy than the English-speaking population. Less is known about the health numeracy of this population due to a lack of health numeracy measures in Spanish.<h4>Objective</h4>we aimed to develop and validate a short and easy to use measure of health numeracy for Spanish-speaking adults: the Spanish Numeracy Understanding in Medicine Instrument (Spanish-NUMi).<h4>Design</h4>Item ...[more]