Sunlight exposure behavior and health literacy among older adults in Hong Kong

Abstract

Introduction : Suffering from vitamin D deficiency is common among older adults in Hong Kong, but many of them are reluctant to expose to sunlight. Little is known about the reason of this behavior and how health literacy (HL) is related to this behavior. This study aims to examine the relationship between HL and sunlight exposure behavior, and to identify factors mediating the relationship. Method : This is a cross-sectional study conducted in 7 local community centers and 23 residential care homes from May 2011 to January 2012. Path analysis was used to investigate the relationships among the variables of interest. Results : Among the 648 older adults surveyed, half of them had inadequate HL and 57% had less than 15-minute sunlight exposure per day in the last 7 days. HL was shown to have direct relationship with the respondents’ sunlight exposure (direct effect = 0.075) and an indirect relationship through their knowledge about vitamin D (KVD) and their attitude towards sunlight exposure (ATSE) (indirect effect = 0.015). Conclusion : The findings implied that purely improving older adults’ KVD or changing their ATSE may not help to rectify their behavior in sunlight exposure. On the contrary, HL seems to play a relative important role in behavior change. Keywords : health literacy, vitamin D