Table 1.

Patient characteristics at the time of hospitalization

	Adequate Health Literacy (BHLS>9) N=35,699	Low Health Literacy BHLS≤9 N=10,564	P value
Number of hospitalizations, Median (IQR)	1 (1, 2)	1 (1, 2)	0.007
Age, median (IQR)	54 (41, 65)	61 (48, 74)	<0.001
Sex, %			<0.001
Male	51.5	54.9
Female	48.5	45.1
Race, %			<0.001
White	81.4	76.7
Black	14.6	15.8
Other	1.4	2.3
Missing race	2.6	5.2
Insurance, %			<0.001
Medicare	32.0	47.3
Medicaid	8.7	12.3
Private	50.6	32.3
Self pay/ Unknown	8.7	8.1
Education, %			<0.001
<12th grade	11.2	28.4
Completed high school or equivalent	36.7	36.8
Less than 4 years post high school	24.5	14.5
4 or more years post high school	21.6	9.6
Missing education	6.0	10.7
Hospitalized via emergency department, %	48.3	54.4	<0.001
Co-morbidities*, %
Hypertension	29.5	34.9	<0.001
Diabetes Mellitus	15.7	19.1	<0.001
Cerebrovascular disease	1.4	2.6	<0.001
Coronary artery disease	12.6	14.1	<0.001
Congestive heart failure	3.2	2.7	0.002
Cancer	18.9	15.8	<0.001
Transplant	4.4	3.9	0.011
Renal Disease	4.1	4.8	<0.001
Creatinine at admission (mg/dL), Median (IQR)	0.87 (0.70, 1.14)	0.91 (0.71, 1.25)	<0.001
Missing creatinine, %	14.1	9.5
Antihypertensives*, %
ACEI/ARB	29.4	30.9	0.003
Thiazide diuretics	14.8	15.2	0.372
Calcium channel blocker	19.3	22.1	<0.001
Beta blocker	28.3	31.7	<0.001
Alpha adrenergics	1.6	1.8	0.126
Loop diuretics	19.0	22.0	<0.001
Central acting and other antihypertensives	8.0	9.9	<0.001

^*Definitions of Co-morbidities are available in Supplemental Table 2

Abbreviations: IQR, interquartile range; ACEI, angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors; ARB, angiotensin receptor blockers