TY - JOUR A1 - Okan, Orkan A1 - Bollweg, Torsten Michael A1 - Berens, Eva-Maria A1 - Hurrelmann, Klaus A1 - Bauer, Ullrich A1 - Schaeffer, Doris T1 - Coronavirus-Related Health Literacy: A Cross-Sectional Study in Adults during the COVID-19 Infodemic in Germany T2 - International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health N2 - There is an “infodemic” associated with the COVID-19 pandemic—an overabundance of valid and invalid information. Health literacy is the ability to access, understand, appraise, and apply health information, making it crucial for navigating coronavirus and COVID-19 information environments. A cross-sectional representative study of participants ≥ 16 years in Germany was conducted using an online survey. A coronavirus-related health literacy measure was developed (HLS-COVID-Q22). Internal consistency was very high (α = 0.940; ρ = 0.891) and construct validity suggests a sufficient model fit, making HLS-COVID-Q22 a feasible tool for assessing coronavirus-related health literacy in population surveys. While 49.9% of our sample had sufficient levels of coronavirus-related health literacy, 50.1% had “problematic” (15.2%) or “inadequate” (34.9%) levels. Although the overall level of health literacy is high, a vast number of participants report difficulties dealing with coronavirus and COVID-19 information. The participants felt well informed about coronavirus, but 47.8% reported having difficulties judging whether they could trust media information on COVID-19. Confusion about coronavirus information was significantly higher among those who had lower health literacy. This calls for targeted public information campaigns and promotion of population-based health literacy for better navigation of information environments during the infodemic, identification of disinformation, and decision-making based on reliable and trustworthy information. Y1 - 2023 UR - https://opus4.kobv.de/opus4-hsog/frontdoor/index/index/docId/4829 VL - 17 IS - 15 ER -