Searching for an alliance with journalism: a survey to investigate health literacy in Italy

Objectives. This study (GLASS) aimed to estimate low Health Literacy (HL) prevalence among journalists and general population and investigate factors associated with low HL.

Methods. GLASS was an Italian online cross-sectional study. Questionnaires included instruments for different HL dimensions: Single Item Literacy Screener (SILS), Medical Term Recognition Test (METER) and Medical Data Interpretation Test (MDIT). For each instrument, multivariable regressions were performed.

Results. Participants were 665. A total of 24.6%, 85.0%, and 58.9% journalists and 19.5%, 77.8%, and 62.6% general population reported low HL (SILS, METER, MDIT, respectively). Mainly, regressions showed journalists who had never written about health and journalists who had personally written about health without being medical journalists had a higher likelihood of reporting low HL.

Conclusion.Our findings are alarming as journalists are key players in public health, especially in the current infodemic. It would be advisable to bolster a stronger collaboration between journalism and science.