Hee Yun Lee
University of Minnesota, USA
Title: Parents’ Health Literacy and its Link to Children’s Health and Mental Health Service Utilization and Outcomes in Asian American Immigrants: A Finding from Population-Based Survey
Biography
Biography: Hee Yun Lee
Abstract
Health literacy is an important barrier to health service utilization and outcomes due to its impact on an individual’s ability to communicate with a service provider and ability to understand and follow health instructions. Most of the research thus far has examined its impact on physical health service utilization or outcomes, with findings generally supporting a link between parental health literacy and child physical health service utilization and outcomes. However, very little research has been done looking at the impact of parental health literacy levels on child mental health service utilization or outcomes. Due to the service gap that exists between children in need of services and those who receive services, it is important that we understand the barriers that may prevent children from receiving the mental health services they need. The present study used data from the 2007 California Health Interview Survey, with 9,399 parents included in the final sample. Multiple regression analyses were conducted to examine the impact of parental health literacy on both child mental health service utilization and mental health outcomes. The results did not support a link between parental health literacy and service utilization for children or teens, but did support a link with child mental health outcomes for Asian and African American children, but not teens. These results suggest that not only should the impact of health literacy be looked at within rather than across groups, but also that while health literacy may not be barrier to utilization of services it may impact experience and outcome of services. rn