Technische Universitat Berlin Researchers Have Published New Data on Public Health (Health Literacy of People with Substitutive Private Health Insurance in Germany and Their Assessment of the Health System Performance According to Health …): Health and Medicine – Public Health

2023 JAN 10 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- A new study on public health is now available. According to news originating from Berlin, Germany, by NewsRx correspondents, research stated, “Health literacy (HL) is a competence to find, understand, appraise, and apply health information and is necessary to maneuver the health system successfully.”

Funders for this research include Federal Ministry of Education And Research; (funding of Apc) By The German Research Foundation; Open Access Publication Fund of Tu Berlin.

The news journalists obtained a quote from the research from Technische Universitat Berlin: “People with low HL are, e.g., under the risk of poor quality and safety of care. Previous research has shown that low HL is more prevalent among, e.g., people with lower social status, lower educational level, and among the elderly. In Germany, people with substitutive private health insurance (PHI) account for 11% of the population and tend to have a higher level of education and social status, but in-detail assessments of their HL are missing so far. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the HL of PHI insureds in Germany, and to analyze their assessment of the health system according to their HL level. In 2018, 20,000 PHI insureds were invited to participate in a survey, which contained the HLS-EU-Q16, and items covering patient characteristics and the World Health Organization health systems framework goals (e.g., access, quality, safety, responsiveness). Low HL was found for 46.2% of respondents and was more prevalent, e.g., among men and insureds with a low subjective social status.”

According to the news reporters, the research concluded: “The health system performance was perceived poorer by respondents with low HL. Future initiatives to strengthen health systems should focus on promoting HL.”

For more information on this research see: Health Literacy of People with Substitutive Private Health Insurance in Germany and Their Assessment of the Health System Performance According to Health Literacy Levels: Results from a Survey. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2022,19(16711):16711. (International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health - http://www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph). The publisher for International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is MDPI AG.

A free version of this journal article is available at https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph192416711.

Our news editors report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Katharina Achstetter, Department of Health Care Management and Berlin Centre for Health Economics Research (BerlinHECOR), Technical University Berlin, Strasse des 17. Juni 135, 10623 Berlin, Germany. Additional authors for this research include Julia Koppen, Matthias Haltaufderheide, Philipp Hengel, Miriam Blumel, Reinhard Busse.

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