A health literacy screening option for clinical neuropsychologists: the Newest Vital Sign is associated with age, cognition, and applied health behaviors

INTRODUCTION: Low health literacy is common and can affect brain health behaviors, yet clinical neuropsychologists do not commonly assess this important construct. The Newest Vital Sign (NVS) is a performance-based health literacy screening instrument that might be of value to clinical neuropsychologists. The current study examined the possible effects of age on the NVS and its association with cognition and applied health literacy. METHOD: Participants included 50 younger (18-32 years) and 41 middle-aged/older (51-82 years) healthy adults. All participants completed the NVS, a neuropsychological battery, and measures of applied health literacy, including web-based health search tasks and the Modified UCSD Brief Assessment for Capacity to Consent. Hypotheses were tested with multiple regression analyses covarying for oral word reading. RESULTS: Results showed that the middle-aged/older adults obtained mildly lower scores on the NVS as compared to younger adults. Lower NVS scores were moderately associated with cognition, particularly in the domain of executive functions (e.g. abstraction, flexibility, and generativity). Higher scores on the NVS were also moderately associated with better performance on measures of web-based health information searching and treatment appraisal. CONCLUSIONS: The NVS is associated with older age, executive functions, and applied health literacy. Clinical neuropsychologists might consider integrating the NVS into their batteries given its brevity and relevance to health factors that affect many people with central nervous system conditions.