Health literacy predicts health outcomes. Despite concerns surrounding the health of Japanese young adults, to date there has been no objective assessment of health literacy in this population. This study aimed to develop a Functional Health Literacy Scale for Young Adults (funHLS-YA) based on item response theory. Each item in the scale requires participants to choose the most relevant term from 3 choices in relation to a target item, thus assessing objective rather than perceived health literacy. The 20-item scale was administered to 1816 university students and 1751 responded. Cronbach’s α coefficient was .73. Difficulty and discrimination parameters of each item were estimated, resulting in the exclusion of 1 item. Some items showed different difficulty parameters for male and female participants, reflecting that some aspects of health literacy may differ by gender. The current 19-item version of funHLS-YA can reliably assess the objective health literacy of Japanese young adults.
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