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This research examines the roles of health literacy, health numeracy, and trust in doctor on: (1) patient anxiety when consulting a doctor; (2) frequency of physician consultations; and (3) patient subjective well‐being (SWB). Our sample consisted of 4,040 adults representative of the United States in terms of age, income, and education, but equally split among White/Caucasian (50%) and Black/African American (50%) respondents. We found that functional and communicative health literacy and trust in doctor have linear and curvilinear relationships with anxiety when consulting a doctor. Health numeracy had no effect. Anxiety when consulting a doctor was associated with a lower number of physician consultations and lower SWB. We observed direct linear effects of health literacy, health numeracy, and trust in doctor on frequency of physician consultations and SWB, as well as some curvilinear effects. We found a negative relationship between health numeracy and SWB. We discuss implications of these findings for health and public policy.
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Understanding Health Risk Comprehension: The Role of Math Anxiety, Subjective Numeracy, and Objective Numeracy
Background. Numeracy skills are important for medical decision making as lower numeracy is associated with misinterpreting statistical health risks. Math anxiety, characterized by negative emotions about numerical tasks, and lower subjective numeracy (i.e., self-assessments of numerical competence) are also associated with poor risk comprehension. Objective. To explore independent and mediated associations of math anxiety, numerical ability, and subjective numeracy with risk comprehension and to ascertain whether their associations are specific to the health domain. Methods. Objective numeracy was measured with a 14-item test. Math anxiety and subjective numeracy were assessed with self-report scales. Risk comprehension was measured with a 12-item test. In experiment 1, risk comprehension items were limited to scenarios in the health domain. In experiment 2, participants were randomly assigned to receive numerically equivalent risk comprehension items in either a health or nonhealth domain. Results. Linear regression analyses revealed that individuals with higher objective numeracy were more likely to respond correctly to the risk comprehension items, as were individuals with higher subjective numeracy. Higher math anxiety was associated with a lower likelihood of correct responding when controlling for objective numeracy but not when controlling for subjective numeracy. Mediation analyses indicated that math anxiety may undermine risk comprehension in 3 ways, including through 1) objective numeracy, 2) subjective numeracy, and 3) objective and subjective numeracy in serial, with subjective numeracy mediating the association between objective numeracy and risk comprehension. Findings did not differ by domain. Conclusions. Math anxiety, objective numeracy, and subjective numeracy are associated with risk comprehension through unique pathways. Education initiatives for improving health risk comprehension may be most effective if jointly aimed at tackling numerical ability as well as negative emotions and self-evaluations related to numeracy.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2001000
- PAR ID:
- 10277539
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Medical Decision Making
- Volume:
- 40
- Issue:
- 2
- ISSN:
- 0272-989X
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 222 to 234
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1177/0272989X20904725
