Research On The Environmental Health Literacy Status And Its Influencing Factors Among Residents In Anji County

Objective:The Ministry of Environmental Protection issued the "Chinese Citizens’ Environmental Health Literacy(Trial)" in 2013,which defined the contents of citizens’ environmental health literacy and provided a basic reference for assessing the current status of public environmental health literacy at the present stage.Based on the discussion of the connotation of environmental health literacy,this study is to attempt to compile the questionnaire of environmental health literacy evaluation.What’s more,this study is to choose Anji County as the research site,to assess the level of environmental health literacy scientifically and accurately and to explore the possible influencing factors of environmental health literacy on the basis of investigation of environmental health literacy among residents in Anji County.Through the investigation results,the study is to put forward reasonable measures and suggestions of improving the residents’ environmental health literacy level and to provide references of formulating relevant policies for the government.Methods:(1)On the basis of literature review,the connotation of environmental health literacy was defined.(2)By defining the connotation,the basic framework of the environmental health literacy questionnaire was constructed and the specific items were set out according to the contents of "Chinese Citizens’ Environmental Health Literacy(Trial)".Through the pre-investigation,the final questionnaire was formed.(3)The residents of Anji County were selected as the research object.The multi-stage stratified cluster random sampling method was used and self-made environmental health literacy questionnaire was used to carry out household survey.A total of 946 residents were surveyed to obtain the scores of the basic ideas,basic knowledge,basic behavior,basic skills in four dimensions and the total score.(4)SPSS20.0 statistical software was used to analyze the collected data.Descriptive analysis,reliability and validity test,t test,one-way ANOVA and multiple linear regression analysis were usedto test the scientific nature of the questionnaire,to assess the level of residents’ environmental health literacy and to explore the influencing factors of environmental health literacy respectively.Results:(1)A total of 1000 questionnaires were distributed and 946(94.60%)valid questionnaires were retrieved.Most of the residents were from the rural areas,the proportion of men and women was balanced,the average age was 41.82 years old,the majority of junior high school and high school education,mainly farmers,mostly married,the average monthly household income in 2000 to 6000 yuan.(2)The reliability analysis showed that the total sCronbach’ a coefficient of the questionnaire was 0.777,and the coefficients of other three dimensions were over 0.6,except for the basic ideas dimension.The correlation analysis showed that the correlation coefficient between the scores of four dimensions and the total score ranged from 0.478 to 0.790,and both were statistically significant(P<0.05).Factor analysis showed that the KMO value was 0.766,and the Bartlett spherical test was statistically significant(P<0.05).The variance variation of 58.099% could be explained by the four common factors that were extracted.(3)The percentage average score of environmental health literacy was 72.06±10.42 and the total rate with environmental health literacy was 25.4% among residents in Anji County.The percentage average scores and rates with environmental health literacy of four sub-dimension literacy from high to low were as follows,basic ideas(79.67±14.19,52.1%),basic knowledge(74.01±13.89,34.2%),basic behavior(70.43±14.64,29.1%),basic skills(52.89±29.86,27.3%).(4)The results of independent t test showed that the differences of the basic ideas,knowledge and skills scores of residents in different areas were statistically significant(P<0.05),and the scores of rural residents were higher than urban areas.ANOVA showed that the differences of the basic ideas,knowledge and skills scores and the total score of the residents with different age,education level,occupation,marital status and household average monthly income were statistically significant(P<0.05).(5)Multiple linear stepwise regression analysis showed that age(β=-0.109),education level(β=0.089)andoccupation(β=-0.072)(all P values < 0.05)were important influencing factors of environmental health literacy,and that environmental health literacy was mainly affected by basic knowledge(β=0.383)and basic behavior(β=0.668)(all P values <0.05)after controlling other demographic variables.Age(β=-0.187),education level(β=0.104),occupation(β=0.102)and monthly income(β=0.131)(all P values < 0.05)were the important influencing factors of the basic ideas literacy.The important influencing factors of the basic knowledge literacy included age(β=-0.103),education level(β=0.233)and monthly income(β=0.076)(all P values < 0.05).The basic behavior literacy was affected by age(β=0.065)(P<0.05).Age(β=-0.157),education level(β=0.215),occupation(β=-0.080)and marital status(β=0.139)(all P values <0.05)were the important influencing factors of the basic skills literacy.Conclusion:(1)The reliability and validity of self-made environmental health literacy questionnaire can be accepted and the questionnaire can provide a reference for the future evaluation of environmental health literacy after being improved.(2)The rate with environmental health literacy is 25.4% among residents in Anji County,but still has a lot of room for improvement.The rate with the basic ideas literacy among residents is the highest,followed by basic knowledge literacy and basic behavior literacy and the basic skills literacy with the lowest rate.In the future,we can improve residents’ environmental health literacy from strengthening the basic ideas of residents,followed by guiding change of residents’ behavior on the basis of strengthening learning of the basic knowledge and grasp of the basic skills.(3)The environmental health literacy is closely related to basic knowledge and basic behavior among residents in Anji County.The main influencing factors of them include age,education level and monthly income.In the future,we should formulate the targeted measures to improve environmental health literacy according to the demographic background of the population and the characteristics of literacy in four dimensions.