Table 3.

Area Under the Receiving Operating Curves (AUROC) for Health Literacy (HL) and Numeracy Screening Items Using Newest Vital Sign (NVS) and Short Assessment of Health Literacy (SAHL) standards

Health Literacy and Numeracy Screening Item	Limited Numeracy (NVS)	Limited/Marginal Numeracy (NVS)	Inadequate Health Literacy (SAHL)
How often do you have problems learning about your medical condition because of difficulty understanding written information?	0.27 (0.16–0.37)	0.46 (0.37–0.56)	0.47 (0.36–0.56)
How confident are you filling out medical forms by yourself?	0.75 (0.65–0.84)	0.66 (0.57–0.75)	0.69 (0.58–0.79)
How often do you have someone help you read hospital materials?	0.42 (0.27–0.57)	0.47 (0.37–0.56)	0.50 (0.40–0.60)
In general, how easy or hard do you find it to understand medical statistics?	0.71 (0.60–0.83)	0.61 (0.51–0.70)	0.59 (0.48–0.70)
How much do you agree or disagree with the following statement? In general, I feel uncomfortable with health information that has a lot of numbers and statistics.	0.44 (0.32–0.57)	0.49 (0.40–0.59)	0.47 (0.36–0.59)
How much do you agree or disagree with the following statement? In general, I depend on numbers and statistics to help me make decisions about my health.	0.44 (0.32–0.57)	0.49 (0.39–0.58)	0.40 (0.30–0.50)

Numeracy and HL levels based on NVS scores (limited = 0 or 1; marginal = 2 or 3) and SAHL scores (inadequate ≤14). AUROCs calculated with 95 % confidence intervals