As health information and services become increasingly digital, it is more important than ever that people can find, understand, evaluate, and use health information in their daily lives. A new study from the University of Eastern Finland shows that a short 12-item questionnaire known as the HLS-Q12 can be used to assess health literacy among Finnish adults and support reliable comparisons between major population groups. This will help you identify where communication and support is most needed.
Published in International Journal of Public Healththis study was carried out by researchers from the University of Eastern Finland and partners from North Savo as part of Finland’s broader health and well-being research project PREWELL.
Health literacy affects how people manage information, services, and decisions related to their health in their daily lives. Health literacy is closely linked to health outcomes and health equity, so reliable monitoring is important.
There is limited large-scale evidence on whether simple international health literacy instruments work well for monitoring Finnish adults. Our study shows that the HLS-Q12 provides a useful foundation for this purpose. ”
Jing Zhou, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Eastern Finland
In this study, researchers analyzed survey data from 7,077 adults living in Finland, including both a nationally recruited sample and a regional sample in North Savo. The results showed that HLS-Q12 is highly reliable and has a clear overall structure. The questionnaire also performed sufficiently consistently across important sociodemographic groups to support meaningful subgroup comparisons.
clear differences between groups
The study found that women had higher health literacy than men, those with higher education had higher scores than those with lower education, and younger people had higher levels than older people.
“A simple survey that works effectively across different groups can help identify where communication and support is most needed,” Zhou says. “As health and social services become increasingly digitalised, it becomes increasingly important to ensure that no population group is left behind.”
The findings of this study provide a strong basis for monitoring health literacy in Finland and support more targeted health communication and more accessible services. The researchers used two complementary analytical approaches to examine whether the tool performs similarly well across different population groups.
sauce:
University of Eastern Finland (UEF Communications)
Reference magazines:
Zhou, J.; Others. (2026). Construct validation and measurement invariance of the HLS-Q12 health literacy instrument in Finnish adults: A comparison of traditional and alignment methods. International Journal of Public Health. DOI: 10.3389/ijph.2026.1609337. https://www.ssph-journal.org/journals/international-journal-of-public-health/articles/10.3389/ijph.2026.1609337/full
