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Table 1 Sample characteristics

From: The economic costs of limited health literacy in China: evidence from China’s National Health Literacy Surveillance data

Variables

Mean/Percent

S.D./Freq.

Level of HL

 

Adequate

Inadequate

Observations

N = 6316

N = 1376

N = 4940

Adequate health literacy (HL) (0/1)

21.8%

n = 1376

/

/

/

Costs

 Incur OOP health exp. (0/1)

73.6%

n = 4647

68.4%

75.0%

***

 Nonzero OOP health exp. (1000 CNY)

2.7

9.1

2.1

2.9

***

 Absenteeism due to illness (0/1)

7.0%

n = 443

8.6%

6.6%

***

 Nonzero days of absenteeism last year

30.0

70.2

21.0

33.3

*

Demographic characteristics

 Urban (0/1)

62.1%

n = 3922

74.3%

58.7%

***

 Male (0/1)

48.2%

n = 3047

48.0%

48.3%

 

 Age in years

49.1

13.6

41.9

51.1

***

 1:15–44

34.7%

n = 2194

60.0%

27.7%

***

 2:45–59

37.7%

n = 2383

28.6%

40.3%

***

 3:60–69

27.5%

n = 1739

11.4%

32.0%

***

 Married (0/1)

82.0%

n = 5180

80.5%

82.4%

 

 Household size

2.9

1.2

3.1

2.8

***

 Household annual inc. pc (1000 CNY)

38.6

46.5

51.6

35.0

***

Education

 1:Primary or lower

30.0%

n = 1893

9.2%

35.8%

***

 2:Middle/High school

47.8%

n = 3021

42.7%

0.493

***

 3:College or higher

22.2%

n = 1402

48.1%

0.150

***

Job status

 1:Public sectors

13.1%

n = 830

23.3%

10.3%

***

 2:Farmers

26.9%

n = 1701

9.2%

31.9%

***

 3:Manual workers

19.1%

n = 1207

14.9%

20.3%

***

 4:Private sectors

28.3%

n = 1785

43.3%

24.1%

***

 5:Other

12.6%

n = 793

9.3%

13.5%

***

Health status

 Self-reported good health (0/1)

64.4%

n = 4068

70.6%

62.7%

***

 Any chronic diseases (0/1)

25.0%

n = 1579

14.0%

28.1%

***

 Cardio-Cerebrovascular diseases (0/1)

19.6%

n = 1241

10.1%

22.3%

***

 Diabetes (0/1)

5.2%

n = 331

2.3%

6.1%

***

BMI status

 1:Underweight (< 18.5)

5.7%

n = 343

6.7%

5.4%

**

 2:Normal (18.5–24)

62.2%

n = 3757

66.2%

61.1%

***

 3:Overweight (24–28)

27.2%

n = 1642

23.9%

28.1%

***

 4:Obese (28+)

4.9%

n = 298

3.2%

5.4%

***

Health behaviour

Smoking status

  1:Never

70.7%

n = 4465

76.7%

69.0%

***

  2:Quit

8.0%

n = 505

5.9%

8.6%

***

  3:Smoke

21.3%

n = 1346

17.4%

22.4%

***

  Flu vaccination (0/1)

1.7%

n = 106

1.1%

1.8%

**

  1. Notes: (1) OOP health exp., Out-of-pocket health expenditure; Household annual inc. pc, Household annual income per capita. (2) The sample size for BMI status variable is 6040. (3) p < 0.10, p < 0.05, p < 0.01. The p-value is calculated using either the t-test (if continuous) or the proportion test (if binary); a pre-test of equality of variance is also conducted. Source: National Health Literacy Surveillance (NHLS) survey in Ningbo, 2019