ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Aging and Public Health
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1628245
Article Title Determinants of Self-reported Health literacy Among Older Adults in South Korea: A Cross-Sectional Study
Provisionally accepted
Jieun Shin1
Seunghui Baek2*- 1Department of Biomedical Informatics, College of Medicine, Konyang University, Daejeon, Republic of Korea
- 2Department of Health and Exercise Management, Sungshin Women’s University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
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Background: This study aimed to identify the determinants of self-reported health literacy among older adults aged 65 years and above in South Korea.Methods: Data were obtained from the 2021 Korean Health Panel Survey, including 4,220 participants aged 65 and above. Statistical analyses such as t-tests, ANOVA, and logistic regression were conducted to examine the effects of personal characteristics and health behaviors on selfreported health literacy.The analysis revealed that men, younger participants, those with spouses, higher education levels, and individuals engaging in positive health behaviors-including non-smoking, non-drinking, and regular exercise-had significantly higher levels of self-reported health literacy.Conclusions: These findings suggest the importance of developing targeted strategies to improve health literacy among older adults, particularly focusing on personal characteristics and health behaviors that are associated with higher health literacy.
Keywords: health literacy1, Older adult2, Health Behavior, Logistic regression 4, South Korea 5
Received: 14 May 2025; Accepted: 05 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Shin and Baek. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Seunghui Baek, Department of Health and Exercise Management, Sungshin Women’s University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
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