Double burden of COVID-19 knowledge deficit: low health literacy and high information avoidance.

Those with lower health literacy were more likely to avoid information about COVID-19. This negative association between health literacy and information avoidance was consistent across all types of health literacy measures: NVS scores (b = - 0.47, p = 0.033), eHEALS scores (b = - 0.12, p = 0.003), functional health literacy (b = - 0.66, p = 0.001), communicative health literacy (b = - 0.94, p < 0.001), information appraisal (b = - 0.36, p = 0.004), and empowerment (b = - 0.62, p = 0.027). The double burden of low health literacy and high information avoidance is likely to lead to a lack of knowledge about COVID-19.