Limited Health Literacy Common in Middle-Aged Primary Care Patients

THURSDAY, June 11, 2026 (HealthDay News) -- Limited health literacy is common among middle-aged primary care patients and is associated with poorer health self-management skills, according to a study published online June 10 in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.Abigail Vogeley, from the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, and colleagues examined the prevalence of limited health literacy and health self-management among middle-aged adults and associations with self-reported physical function in cross-sectional analyses. A total of 942 middle-aged primary care patients in Chicago, participating in a longitudinal cognitive aging study were included in the analyses.Overall, 13.2 percent of adults presented with low health literacy and 19.3 percent had marginal abilities. The researchers observed an association for low health literacy with less education, lower income, unemployment, and identifying as non-Hispanic Black or Hispanic/Latino. More chronic conditions, more prescription medications, and worse performance on a cognitive screener were seen for those with low health literacy. Compared with those with adequate health literacy, individuals with low and marginal health literacy had worse performance on health management tasks in multivariable models controlling for age, race, sex, education, income, and number of chronic conditions. The relationship between health literacy and physical function was no longer significant for either low or marginal groups after adjustment for covariates, although it was initially significant."Our findings suggest health literacy is suboptimal even in middle age," Vogeley said in a statement. "Middle-aged adults become older adults, so if we look at this from an optimistic perspective, this can be a place for intervention."Two authors disclosed ties to the pharmaceutical and health care industries.Abstract/Full Text.Sign up for our weekly HealthDay newsletter

Limited Health Literacy Common in Middle-Aged Primary Care Patients

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