Developing a climate change health literacy scale: A methodological study in Turkish adults

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Environmental Health
• Psychometrics

Background:

• Growing concern over climate change impacts on human health.
• Need for validated tools to measure public understanding and engagement with climate change health issues.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate the Climate Change Health Literacy Scale (CCHLS) for adults.
• To assess attitudes and behaviors related to the health impacts of climate change.

Main Methods:

• Methodological study involving item pool creation and expert content validity testing.
• Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses on data from 318 adults.
• Reliability testing using Cronbach's alpha and assessment of discriminative validity.

Main Results:

• Developed a 24-item, four-factor CCHLS explaining 67.03% of variance.
• Confirmatory factor analysis showed acceptable fit indices (RMSEA=0.06, CFI=0.94).
• High reliability (Cronbach's alpha=0.94) and strong discriminative validity confirmed the scale's quality.

Conclusions:

• The CCHLS is a valid and reliable instrument for assessing adult climate change health literacy in Turkish.
• The scale can be translated and disseminated to enhance public awareness of climate change's health effects globally.
• Supports efforts in climate change mitigation and public health preparedness.