Development and Validation of a Food Literacy Assessment Tool for Community-Dwelling Elderly People

Food literacy refers to the knowledge, skills, and attitudes required for individuals to choose foods that promote health. As the rate of diet-related diseases increases, food literacy is becoming more important. However, there are no tools available to evaluate food literacy among the Korean elderly. We derived 547 questions from a literature review and, after three rounds of Delphi surveys, selected 33 preliminary questions. We calculated the content validity ratio of the questions and applied a face validity procedure. We then selected 32 questions, assessed their validity, and distributed them as a questionnaire to 205 elderly people. We then conducted exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to determine the validity of the questionnaire and used an internal consistency index (Cronbach's α coefficient) to determine reliability. Based on the factor analysis, 13 questions were selected, distributed among three factors, and evaluated using the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) and Bartlett sphericity tests. The factor analysis showed that KMO was 0.872, which is a highly acceptable score, and the Bartlett sphericity test was χ² = 1,374.69 at p = 0.00. The food literacy questionnaire developed in this study will likely be helpful for improving the healthcare of elderly people.