The statistic shows the degree of adult literacy in China from 1982 to 2020. In 2020, the literacy rate, which is defined as people aged 15 and above who can read and write, had reached about 97.15 percent in China.

Global literacy rates

By 2020, around 86.8 percent of the world population aged 15 years and above had been able to read and write. While in developed regions this figure ranged a lot higher, only around 67 percent of the population in Sub-Saharan Africa was literate. Countries with the lowest literacy rates are also the most underdeveloped worldwide. According to UNESCO, literacy is a human right, especially in a fast-changing and technology-driven world. In China, the literacy rate has developed from 79 percent in 1982 to 97 percent in 2020, indicating that almost one million people per year had become literate over three decades. In India, the situation was entirely different. The second most populous country in the world displayed a literacy rate of merely 76 percent in 2022.

Literacy in China

The dramatic increase in literacy in China has a lot to do with the efficacy of numerous political, economic and educational policies. In 1982, compulsory education was written into the Chinese constitution, postulating a nine-year compulsory education funded by the government. As is shown by the graph above, there was a large gender gap in literacy rate in China as of 1982. Though this gap still existed in 2020, it was narrowed down to three percent, starting from 28 percent in 1982. Since 1990, the national education policy was directed at females, especially from poor and/or minority families. Over the past years, China has achieved gender parity in primary schooling.

However, regional literacy disparities in China should not to be overlooked. Regions with a strong economic background tend to display illiteracy rates below national average. In contrast, economically underdeveloped regions have a much larger share of people who cannot read nor write. Tibet for instance, a region where 92 percent of the population belong to an ethnic minority, showed the highest illiterate rate nationwide, with around 34 percent in 2022.

BackgroundPatients with mental disorders often exhibit unique challenges in medication adherence, comprehension of drug information, and self-management abilities, underscoring the need for a specialized assessment tool to accurately reflect their medication literacy levels and support targeted clinical interventions.MethodsA stepwise, mixed-methods design was adopted to develop the Medication Literacy Assessment Scale. Preliminary items were generated through a comprehensive literature review and semi-structured interviews with 20 patients and 6 psychiatric professionals. Then, a two-round Delphi study was conducted to refine the scale based on expert consensus. Quantitative analysis of expert feedback guided the scale’s refinement, ensuring it effectively captures the unique aspects of medication literacy for patients with mental disorders in recovery.ResultsThe finalized Medication Literacy Assessment Scale for patients with mental disorders in recovery was developed, yielding 35 items across four dimensions: functional literacy (10 items), communicative literacy (6 items), critical literacy (11 items), and numeracy (8 items). Each dimension reflects essential aspects of medication literacy specific to this population, as identified through expert consensus.ConclusionThis study developed a preliminary, standardized tool for assessing medication literacy in patients with mental disorders during recovery, with the potential to identify individuals at risk of medication mismanagement and to enable targeted interventions and improved outcomes in China’s healthcare system. Although its psychometric properties have not yet been evaluated in this stage, future research will conduct empirical validation to establish its measurement reliability and validity.

Previous studies have indicated that the relationship between magnocellular-dorsal (M-D) function and reading-related skills may vary with reading development in readers of alphabetic languages. Since this relationship could be affected by the orthographic depth of writing systems, the present study explored the relationship between M-D function and reading-related skills in Chinese, a writing system with a deeper orthography than alphabetic languages. Thirty-seven primary school students and fifty-one undergraduate students participated. Orthographic and phonological awareness tests were adopted as reading-related skill measurements. A steady-pedestal paradigm was used to assess the low-spatial-frequency contrast thresholds of M-D function. Results showed that M-D function was only correlated with orthographic awareness for adults, revealing an enhancement with reading development; while being related to phonological awareness only for children revealing a developmental decrement. It suggested that the mechanism responsible for the relationship between M-D activity and reading-related skills was affected by the characteristics of literacy development in Chinese.

We conducted a series of eye movement experiments in order to empirically examine our MCU hypothesis. We tested whether frequently occurring two-character phrases, three-character idioms with different structures (e.g., “2+1” idioms, 2-character modifier and 1-character noun structure; “1+2” idioms, 1-character modifier and 2-character noun structure; “1+2” idioms, 1-character verb and 2-character noun structure), four-character idioms and frequently occurring four-character phrases, famous people’s names, place names, and popular internet phrases, are likely to be represented and processed as MCUs. All these experiments have shown statistically robust results providing solid support for the MCU Hypothesis that we described in our proposal. The project reshaped our understanding of eye movement control during reading, and opened up a series of interesting research questions in both alphabetic and non-alphabetic languages – what determines a sequence of adjacent words to be processed as a single unit and how visual and lexical processing is operationalized over a flexible unit of text rather than the constant word during reading.

Reading is vital for successful function in modern society, both professionally and socially. Furthermore, literacy is at the core of a society built around social inclusion. The ability to read contributes to an individual's self-esteem and the extent to which they develop to their full potential. Scientific investigation of reading is vital for the development of sound educational policy in relation to best teaching practice. For these reasons, research projects investigating the psychological processes underlying reading are very important.

In this project we will focus on Chinese reading, particularly, how readers linguistically process common multi-word phrases (we term these Multi-Constituent Units, MCUs), and how they decide where words begin and end when they read naturally. An important property of Chinese written text that is critical to this project is that it is an unspaced character based language. Written Chinese is not like alphabetic languages such as English in which there are individual words with spaces between them that are formed from letters. Instead, Chinese written sentences take the form of strings of characters, that is, box-like symbols that are comprised of arrangements of strokes. Characters can be grouped together to form words, but unlike English, there are no spaces between words indicating where the words start and end. Also, there is often significant ambiguity as to which characters form word units in Chinese. Given these properties, written Chinese provides an opportunity to investigate important theoretical questions that it is simply impossible to investigate in English. Here we focus on two very important theoretical issues:

(1) Do Chinese readers process MCUs (e.g., teddy bear; salt and pepper) in the same way that they process single words? (2) How do readers decide where words, or MCUs, begin and end as they read unspaced Chinese text?

In order to do this, we will conduct a series of experiments in which we measure Chinese participants' eye movements as they read sentences that include MCUs. Eye movement research has been fundamental in shaping current theoretical accounts of the psychological processes that occur during reading. When we read, our eyes move in a series of jumps (saccades) and brief pauses lasting about a quarter of a second (fixations). Readers visually and linguistically process text during fixations before making a saccade to inspect new, upcoming portions of the sentence. In our experimental work we use sophisticated eye tracking devices to record readers' eye movements as they read sentences from a computer screen. The techniques we employ are harmless. The eye movement data we obtain provide a very rich and detailed on-line measure of exactly how long readers spend processing each word, or MCU, in a sentence. This in turn provides significant insight into the nature of the psychological processes that occur on-line in reading.

We are focusing on how Chinese readers process MCUs, and how they work out where word boundaries lie because these questions are at the core of a very contentious debate in the field of reading, namely, whether readers identify words one at a time (serially), or identify multiple words simultaneously (in parallel) as they read. It is our contention that both these positions may actually be correct, in that readers sometimes process MCUs as though they are single words. If our experiments demonstrate that this is true (and we believe they will), then we can explain contradictory findings and move the scientific debate forward from the present stalemate.

The proposed research is built on a longstanding successful collaboration between researchers in the Perception, Cognition and Neuroscience Research Group at University of Central Lancashire and researchers at the Eye Movement Laboratories...

Nutrition literacy plays an important role in children's dietary habits and nutrition. This study aimed to analyse the status of nutrition literacy and its influencing factors amongst middle school students in Chongqing, China. “Nutrition literacy scale for middle school students in Chongqing” was used in 29 districts of Chongqing in September 2020. The scores of nutrition literacy and its' three sub-domains (functional, interactive and critical nutrition literacy) were divided into low and high groups based on their median scores. Binary logistic regression was used to measure the influencing factors of nutrition literacy. A total of 18,660 middle school students were included in this study. The median of nutrition literacy of middle school students was 61.68 (IQR = 14.37). Interactive nutrition literacy had the highest score (median = 70.00, IQR = 20.00), followed by functional nutrition literacy (median = 68.69, IQR = 14.14) and critical nutrition literacy (median = 45.83, IQR = 25.00). Students who were the minority (OR = 0.71, 95% CI = 0.637–0.785), in senior high school (OR = 0.51, 95% CI = 0.477–0.548), in rural areas (OR = 0.85, 95% CI = 0.790–0.911), receiving school meal support from the government (OR = 0.63, 95% CI = 0.591–0.664), with other caregivers' parenting (OR = 0.86, 95% CI = 0.805–0.914), with parents having a low level of education and with an abnormal BMI [thin (OR = 0.91, 95% CI = 0.837–0.990), overweight (OR = 0.87, 95% CI = 0.785–0.968), and obese (OR = 0.83, 95% CI = 0.767–0.902)] presented less probability of being a high level of nutrition literacy. Our results could assist public health authorities in developing strategies of nutrition literacy promotion for references and theoretical foundations.

IntroductionDespite the growing challenges associated with household debt, research on factors influencing its relationship with psychological well-being remains limited. This study investigates the role of financial literacy in the nexus between household indebtedness and mental health, addressing a significant gap in the literature.MethodsUsing data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) 2014 wave, a nationally representative dataset, we analyze how financial literacy interacts with household debt and mental health outcomes. Multiple model specifications are employed to assess the moderating and mediating effects of financial literacy.ResultsOur findings reveal two key roles of financial literacy: (1) it improves mental health by reducing household indebtedness, and (2) it moderates the negative relationship between debt and mental health. Notably, basic financial literacy is a critical factor, particularly in explaining the effects of non-housing debt (as opposed to housing debt).DiscussionThe study highlights the dual function of financial literacy in mitigating the adverse psychological effects of household debt. Policymakers and financial educators should consider promoting financial literacy as a tool to enhance mental health, especially in contexts of high indebtedness. Future research could explore additional mediators and cultural variations in this relationship.

ObjectiveThe burden of overweight and obesity in adolescents is increasing rapidly. This study aimed to assess the association between nutrition literacy and overweight/obesity among adolescents in China.MethodsThis cross–sectional online study involving adolescents aged 10–18 years was conducted in September 2020 in 239 schools in Chongqing China. Overweight and obese adolescents were determined based on the International Obesity Task Force's recommended age–sex specific body mass index cutoff points. Nutrition literacy was measured using the “Nutrition literacy scale for middle school students in Chongqing (CM–NLS).” The CM–NLS included three subdomains (functional nutritional literacy, interactive nutrition literacy, and critical nutrition literacy). Multinomial logistic regression model was used to examine the association.ResultsA total of 18,176 adolescents (49.8% girls) were included. The prevalence of overweight and obesity was 9.6% and 17.0%, respectively. Compared with those having a low nutrition literacy score (below median), those with a high score were less likely to be overweight and obese. The odds ratio (95% CI) for overweight was 0.87 (0.79–0.97) (nutrition literacy) and 0.81 (0.73–0.90) (functional nutritional literacy). The corresponding figures for obesity were 0.84 (0.77–0.91) and 0.73 (0.67–0.80), respectively. Significant interaction existed between grade and nutrition literacy. The inverse association between nutrition literacy and overweight/obesity was significant among those in senior school but not among those in junior high school.ConclusionNutrition literacy was inversely associated with overweight/obesity among adolescents, especially those attending senior high schools.

BackgroundInternet addiction has emerged as a major global concern as a potential adverse impact of internet exposure on adolescents. Internet addiction is associated with many demographic variables; however, there is a lack of consensus on its relationship with health literacy. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to assess the rates of internet addiction and health literacy level among middle school students (grades 7 to 12) in Chongqing, China, as well as to investigate the association between them.MethodsA cross-sectional, questionnaire-based study was conducted among 8971 students who were randomly selected by using stratified cluster sampling between November and December 2019. The Internet Addiction Diagnostic Questionnaire, Adolescent Health Literacy Scale and a self-designed basic information questionnaire were used to collect data. Chi-square tests were performed to compare the differences in the distribution of internet addiction across health literacy levels as well as some sociodemographic characteristics. Multivariate logistic regression analyses were conducted to identify the association between health literacy and internet addiction.ResultsThe prevalence of internet addiction among middle school students in Chongqing was 6.1%. The percentage of the students who spent more than 4 hours online every day in the past week was 14.3%. In addition, 26.7%, 26.0%, 28.3% and 26.3% of the participants reported low functional, interactive, critical and total health literacy, respectively. After adjusting for the confounding effects of demographics, multivariate regression analysis showed that critical health literacy was a protective variable for internet addiction, while functional, and interactive health literacy were the risk variable (P

IntroductionHealth literacy (HL) refers to an individual's ability to process and use health information to make health-related decisions. However, previous HL scales did not fully cover all aspects of this concept. This study aimed to develop a comprehensive Hong Kong HL scale (HLS-HK) and evaluate its psychometric properties among Chinese adults.MethodsA scale of 31-item covering Nutbeam's framework, namely functional and interactive HL (FHL and IHL), and critical HL (CHL) within three subdomains: critical appraisal of information, understanding of social determinants of health, and actions to address social determinants of health, was developed based on previous literature review and Delphi survey. Cognitive interviews were performed to examine all items' face validity in terms of three aspects: comprehensiveness, clarity, and acceptability. A cross-sectional survey was conducted to investigate the scale's psychometric properties, including its internal consistency reliability, factorial structure validity, convergent validity, and predictive validity.ResultsNine interviewees participated in the cognitive interviews in October 2021. Based on the input from respondents, two items were deleted, two items were combined, and several items' wording was revised. The other items were clear and readable. Finally, 28 items remained. A total of 433 adults completed the questionnaire survey between December 2021 and February 2022. After excluding one item with low inter-item correlations, the scale's internal consistency reliability was acceptable, with a Cronbach's alpha of 0.89. Exploratory factor analysis produced a five-factor model, as shown in the original theoretical framework. These factors accounted for 53% of the total variance. Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed that the fit indices for this model were acceptable (comparative fit index = 0.91, root mean square error of approximation = 0.06, and root mean square residual = 0.06). The scale is also significantly correlated with theoretically selected variables, including education and self-rated health.ConclusionThe HLS-HK is a valid and reliable tool for evaluating HL. Compared with existing tools, this scale extended the operationalization of FHL, IHL, and CHL and fully operationalized the CHL via three subdomains. It can be used to understand the difficulties and barriers that people may encounter when they use health-related information and services.

Acquiring a second language (L2) has the power to shape cognition and even the function and structure of the brain. Picture-book reading with additive audio (PRA) is a popular and convenient means of providing L2 exposure for non-balanced bilingual children; however, its contribution to bilingual children’s brain activity is unclear. This study conducted a rigorous bilingual word comprehension experiment and a naturalistic PRA task to explore the effect of L2 processing on brain activation among English as a foreign language (EFL) preschoolers, using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). We found that the two contexts of comprehending English words and bilingual switching (BS), which impose more cognitive control demands, activated the prefrontal cortex (PFC) more than did the condition of comprehending Chinese words. Furthermore, the effect of PFC activity in the condition of picture-book reading with additive English audio (English PRA) was also found to be greater than in the condition of picture-book reading with additive Chinese audio (Chinese PRA); moreover, the effect was modulated by story difficulty. Finally, a positive correlation was shown between EFL children’s English competence and PFC activation through English PRA. This study indicates that the experiences of hearing L2 auditory stories in a picture-book reading activity yielded significant changes to early bilinguals’ PFC functional for cognitive control and language processing.

BackgroundThe widespread application and iterative updating of computers and Internet communication technologies have not only increased productivity and enhanced intra- and inter-enterprise collaboration, but have also led to significant changes in the labor market and residents’ labor income. In the digital era, accepting digital technology and possessing a certain degree of digital literacy have become the necessary abilities for people to survive and develop. However, the differences in digital literacy caused by individual differences will inevitably bring about a series of chain reactions. Therefore, it is necessary to study the subtle impact of Internet usage preference on residents’ labor income in the context of digital transformation to promote digital equity.ObjectiveThis study aims to empirically analyze micro-level survey data to reveal the impact of individual differences in internet usage preferences on their labor income. The findings provide theoretical references for government policy formulation and individual development.MethodsA function model was established to analyze the impact of individual internet usage preferences on labor income. Relevant data from the authoritative Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS2017) were selected, and empirical analyses for significance, heterogeneity, and robustness were conducted using the ZINB and CMP models in the Stata statistical software.Conclusion(1) Higher Internet Usage Frequency (IUF) increases the likelihood of higher income. (2) Engaging in Online Social Networking (OSN) helps in accumulating social capital, leading to higher labor income. Meanwhile, participating in Online Entertainment (OE) relieves work and life stresses, thereby increasing labor income. Proficiency in Accessing Online Information (AOI) is associated with higher labor income, while frequent involvement in Online Business (OB) is correlated with higher personal income. Additionally, the Marginal utility of these internet usage preferences indicate that OB > AOI > OSN > OE. (3) Individual variations in physical, psychological, and social characteristics significantly influence the labor income effects of internet usage preferences. (4) There are substantial differences in the labor income effects of internet usage preferences between urban and rural areas and across different regions. (5) Education attainment has a positive mediating effect on the labour income effect of individual Internet use preferences, and enhancing residents’ digital literacy has a positive effect on increasing their labour income and alleviating inequality in digital gains. (6) The popularity of Internet technology is the background that triggers an individual’s Internet use, and the acceptance of a particular Internet technology is catalyzed by an individual’s perception of the value and difficulty of mastering that technology; an individual’s biased learning or proficiency in a particular Internet technology in order to gain higher competitiveness and value in the labour market is an important internal driving force.