Literacy and knowledge, attitudes and behavior about mammography in Latinas

This cross-sectional study explored the association between functional health literacy and the knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, and behavior about mammography and self-breast examination in a sample of Latinas attending community health clinics in Philadelphia. The results show that 70% of Latinas had inadequate or marginal functional health literacy. In Latinas, functional health literacy is only weakly associated with knowledge and not associated with beliefs and attitudes about screening mammography, but is significantly associated with having ever had a mammogram. After adjusting for demographic characteristics, functional health literacy was significantly associated with having ever had a mammogram (odds ratio [OR] 1.14,95% confidence interval [CI] 1.021.27). These findings suggest that Latinas with poor functional health literacy are less likely to undergo mammography. Future research should target increasing the knowledge about and rates of screening mammography in patients with low functional health literacy.