eHealth literacy among Portuguese-speaking migrants: The role of length of stay in Portugal

Abstract

Background: Although sharing the language of the host country, migrants from African countries with Portuguese as an official lan- guage face specific challenges in digital integration. The length of stay in the host country may influence their eHealth literacy, impacting access to health services and the promotion of health equity. Methods: Descriptive, cross-sectional and exploratory study, apply- ing the eHealth Literacy Questionnaire (Norgaard et al., 2015) along with a sociodemographic and health characterization. Data were collected and processed from a sample of 101 participants from a migrant community, mostly from African Countries with Portuguese as an Official Language as their country of origin, fluent in Portuguese. Results: The study population represented 17.7% of the total popu- lation, with a 95% confidence level and a 9% margin of error. The internal consistency for the full scale was 0.95, with Cronbach’s alpha values ranging from 0.60 to 0.92 across the dimensions. Overall, eHealth literacy scores were mostly below the scale average. Participants residing in Portugal for less than one year showed sig- nificantly lower scores in the ‘Understanding of health concepts and language’ dimension compared to longer-term residents. Conclusions: Findings indicate that, despite sharing the host country’s language, migrants remain vulnerable in eHealth literacy, particularly in understanding health concepts. This underscores the need for targeted health interventions to support their digital inte- gration in the host country.