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

Katharina Achstetter (), Julia Köppen, Matthias Haltaufderheide, Philipp Hengel, Miriam Blümel and Reinhard Busse
Additional contact information
Katharina Achstetter: Department of Health Care Management and Berlin Centre for Health Economics Research (BerlinHECOR), Technische Universität Berlin, Straße des 17. Juni 135, 10623 Berlin, Germany
Julia Köppen: Department of Health Care Management and Berlin Centre for Health Economics Research (BerlinHECOR), Technische Universität Berlin, Straße des 17. Juni 135, 10623 Berlin, Germany
Matthias Haltaufderheide: Department of Health Care Management and Berlin Centre for Health Economics Research (BerlinHECOR), Technische Universität Berlin, Straße des 17. Juni 135, 10623 Berlin, Germany
Philipp Hengel: Department of Health Care Management and Berlin Centre for Health Economics Research (BerlinHECOR), Technische Universität Berlin, Straße des 17. Juni 135, 10623 Berlin, Germany
Miriam Blümel: Department of Health Care Management and Berlin Centre for Health Economics Research (BerlinHECOR), Technische Universität Berlin, Straße des 17. Juni 135, 10623 Berlin, Germany
Reinhard Busse: Department of Health Care Management and Berlin Centre for Health Economics Research (BerlinHECOR), Technische Universität Berlin, Straße des 17. Juni 135, 10623 Berlin, Germany

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 24, 1-17

Abstract: Health literacy (HL) is a competence to find, understand, appraise, and apply health information and is necessary to maneuver the health system successfully. 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. The health system performance was perceived poorer by respondents with low HL. Future initiatives to strengthen health systems should focus on promoting HL.

Keywords: health literacy; Germany; private health insurance; health system performance assessment; HLS-EU-Q16; social context; access; quality; safety (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/24/16711/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/24/16711/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:24:p:16711-:d:1001583

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().