Relation between communicative and critical health literacy and physical activity in Japanese adults: a cross-sectional study

Abstract

Communicative and critical health literacy (HL) are thought to play an important role in improving healthy behaviours. However, no study has examined the relation between these types of HL and physical activity. The purpose of this study was to examine the relation of these types of HL to overall (“total”) physical activity and the different domains (work-related “work”, travel-related “travel”, and recreational “recreation”) of physical activity in Japanese adults. This study was an internet-based cross-sectional survey. The analysis included 3,132 participants. The survey included the following variables: 1) communicative and critical HL, 2) physical activity measured by the Global Physical Activity Questionnaire (GPAQ), and 3) confounders (gender, age, marital status, living with family, household motor vehicles, body mass index, household income, educational status, and employment status). To examine the relation of communicative and critical HL to physical activity, logistic regression analysis was performed to calculate the odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (95% CI) for “active” physical activity in total and each domain (“work”, “travel”, and “recreation”) of physical activity stratified by gender. In men, high HL was significantly related to total (OR: 1.81, 95% CI: 1.47-2.22), travel (1.76, 1.42-2.18), and recreation physical activity (1.75, 1.39-2.21); but not significantly related to work physical activity (1.22, 0.94-1.58). In women, high HL was significantly related to total (1.43, 1.15-1.77), travel (1.38, 1.11-1.71), and recreation physical activity (2.12, 1.63-2.76); but not significantly related to work physical activity (1.31, 0.97-1.78). This study suggests that a high level of communicative and critical HL was significantly related to high level of total, travel-related, and recreational physical activity in Japanese adults.