Table 1.
Population characteristics at birth (N= 560)
| Characteristic | Inadequat e Literacy n (%) |
Marginal Literacy n (%) |
Adequate Literacy n (%) |
Total n (%) |
p- value1 |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sample Size | 58 | 74 | 428 | 560 | ||
| Maternal race/ethnicity | 0.68 | |||||
| African-American | 46 (79) | 63 (85) | 355 (83) | 464 (83) | ||
| Non-African-American | 12 (21) | 11 (15) | 73 (17) | 96 (17) | ||
| Maternal marital status | 0.15 | |||||
| Single | 52 (90) | 69 (93) | 366 (86) | 487 (87) | ||
| Married/Widowed/Divorced | 6 (10) | 5 (7) | 62 (14) | 73 (13) | ||
| Number of children2 | 0.083 | |||||
| 1 | 26 (45) | 34 (46) | 152 (36) | 212 (38) | ||
| 2 | 11 (19) | 21 (28) | 114 (27) | 146 (26) | ||
| 3 or more | 21 (36) | 19 (26) | 162 (38) | 202 (36) | ||
| Maternal Education | 0.001 | |||||
| Less than High School | 20 (34) | 32 (43) | 119 (28) | 171 (31) | ||
| High School/GED | 15 (26) | 23 (31) | 97 (23) | 135 (24) | ||
| Beyond High School | 23 (40) | 19 (26) | 212 (50) | 254 (45) | ||
| Employment Status3 | 0.47 | |||||
| Student | 21 (39) | 22 (39) | 141 (40) | 184 (39) | ||
| Employed, Full Time | 16 (30) | 16 (29) | 133 (37) | 165 (35) | ||
| Unemployed, looking for employment | 10 (19) | 10 (18) | 38 (11) | 58 (12) | ||
| Unemployed, not looking for employment | 7 (13) | 8 (14) | 45 (13) | 60 (13) | ||
| Income4 | 0.33 | |||||
| Under $250/month | 14 (27) | 22 (35) | 95 (23) | 131 (25) | ||
| $251 – $500/month | 16 (31) | 18 (29) | 113 (28) | 147 (28) | ||
| $501 – $1000/month | 12 (23) | 16 (25) | 92 (23) | 120 (23) | ||
| $1,001 – $1,500/month | 5 (10) | 3 (5) | 49 (12) | 57 (11) | ||
| ≥$1501/month | 5 (10) | 4 (6) | 58 (14) | 67 (13) | ||
P-value is for the chi-square test for race/ethnicity, marital status, and employment status, and Kruskal-Wallis test for number of children, income, and, maternal education.
Number of children is categorized as 1, 2, 3–10 in this table because of the small number of families with more than 3 children.
Missing 93 (16.6% of sample). The health literacy distribution of those missing employment data is not statistically different from those who reported their employment status.
Missing 38 (6.8% of sample). A higher proportion of mothers who reported their income have adequate health literacy than those with missing income (p<0.05). The two groups are not significantly different for the other two levels of health literacy.