Nutrition literacy plays a pivotal role in fostering healthier eating habits; however, most existing assessment tools emphasize functional literacy, often overlooking interactive and critical aspects. This systematic review evaluates tools measuring food and nutrition literacy in adults. Following PRISMA guidelines, we searched PubMed, Scopus, Embase, ScienceDirect, and Web of Science for English-language studies published from inception to October 18, 2024. Reference lists were hand-searched. Inclusion criteria targeted original research on instruments for assessing food or nutrition literacy in healthy adults. Quality assessment used the Jolles et al. framework. The review included 23 studies, of which 22 developed or validated quantitative tools originating from South Korea, Australia, China, the United States, and other regions. Most tools concentrated on functional literacy (74% of mappable tools), evaluating fundamental knowledge, skills, and comprehension. Interactive (35%) and critical (57%) dimensions were less frequently explored. Three tools were unidimensional and could not be fully mapped. Tools exhibited considerable variability in structure, length, and cultural relevance, with quality assessments revealing intermediate to high reliability for most. This review underscores a notable deficiency in tools addressing interactive and critical literacy. Assessment tools do not directly improve literacy but provide structured methods for measuring existing literacy levels and identifying gaps that may inform educational or policy interventions.
Kamrani et al. (Mon,) studied this question.