Objective  To examine health literacy and its influencing factors among residents of Wuhan city and to provide evidences for developing strategies and measures on health education in the population.

  Methods  With stratified multi-stage random sampling, we conducted a household questionnaire survey on health literacy among 4 500 permanent urban and rural residents aged 15 to 65 years living in 13 administrative regions of Wuhan city, Hubei province between October and December 2016.

  Results  Of all the participants, 11.79% were assessed with adequate overall health literacy; 22.88%, 9.92%, and 14.74% reported having basic health knowledge and concept, healthy lifestyle and behavior, and basic health-related skills. The proportions of the participants with basic health literacy domains from high to low were 44.42% for safety and first aid, 33.73% for scientific health literacy, 19.74% for acquiring health information, 16.73% for infectious disease prevention and control, 12.75% for basic medication, and 11.47% for chronic disease prevention and control literacy. Multivariate logistic regression analyses revealed that occupation, age, education, and urban/rural dwelling area were major influence factors of health literacy among the population.

  Conclusion  The health literacy of residents in Wuhan city is still at a low level and health education mainly on medication and chronic disease prevention and control should be promoted among the residents in rural regions, with low education, and at elder age.