Abstract

Age differences in health literacy were explored in this study, by comparing gaze patterns through eye-tracking to understand older adults’ difficulty in processing health-related information. Fifteen younger and 12 older adults performed a computer-based health literacy task, while their visual attention was measured by monitoring their eye movements. Their gaze patterns were analyzed by creating three areas of interest (AOIs), namely a question AOI, a key-information AOI for answering the question, and a non-key information AOI. Results indicate that older adults were less accurate and slower in responding to the health literacy task than younger adults, especially regarding questions calculating the dosage of a drug and using nutrition labels. Additionally, older adults took longer to read the question. They also took longer to locate key-information, compared to their younger counterparts. Such patterns were frequently observed regarding numerical and nutrition label questions. Longer response time, longer fixation on questions, and longer time to locate key-information, were associated with lower accuracy of the health literacy task. Results suggest that health literacy may be lower among older adults, due to the difficulty in understanding health-related questions and finding key information.