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. 2018 Apr;29(5):498-504.
doi: 10.1177/0956462417738679. Epub 2017 Oct 25.

Health literacy and current CD4 cell count in a multiethnic U.S. sample of adults living with HIV infection

Rheeda L Walker  1 , Judy H Hong  1 , David C Talavera  1 , Marizela Verduzco  2 , Steven Paul Woods  1
Affiliations

Health literacy and current CD4 cell count in a multiethnic U.S. sample of adults living with HIV infection

Rheeda L Walker et al. Int J STD AIDS. 2018 Apr.

Abstract

Hispanic and Black adults are disproportionately affected by HIV and experience poorer HIV-related health outcomes relative to non-Hispanic White adults. The current study adopted Sørensen's integrated model to test the hypothesis that lower functional and critical health literacy competencies contribute to poorer HIV-related health and CD4 cell count for Hispanic and Black individuals. Eighty-one non-Hispanic White, Hispanic, and Black HIV seropositive individuals from a large, Southwestern metropolitan area were administered measures of health literacy, including the Expanded Numeracy Scale, Newest Vital Sign, Rapid Estimate of Adult Literacy in Medicine, Test of Functional Health Literacy (TOHFLA)-numeracy, and TOHFLA-reading. Hispanic and Black individuals demonstrated less HIV knowledge than non-Hispanic White individuals. Black participants demonstrated fewer health literacy appraisal skills. Importantly, lower levels of health literacy were linked to poorer CD4 cell count (an index of immune functioning) for Hispanic and Black individuals and not for non-Hispanic White individuals. These findings suggest race group differences for health literacy on current CD4 cell count such as very specific dimensions of low health literacy (e.g. poorer judgment of health-related information), but not other presumed deficits (e.g. motivation, access), play an important role in clinical health outcomes in HIV.

Keywords: Black; CD4 cell count; HIV; Health literacy; Hispanic; multiethnic.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest: The authors state that they have no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Box and whisker plots displaying the scores of the Black, Hispanic, and non-Hispanic White participants on health literacy measures of knowledge and appraisal.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Scatter plots for z-scores on health literacy measures of knowledge and appraisal in association with CD4 cell counts by Race/Ethnicity.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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