Objective  To know about the status of health literacy on infectious disease prevention and its influential factors, and to provide evidence for prevention and control on infectious disease.

  Methods  By using stratified,multi-stage, simple random and PPS sampling method,the investigation extracted the sample from Hebei province. The respondents were 20 535 urban and rural residents of 15–69 years old who were selected to complete a health literacy questionnaire. Descriptive analysis, chi-square test and logistic regression analysis under complex sampling module were used to study the literacy level and influencing factors of infectious disease prevention and control in populations with different characteristics.

  Results  After weighted adjustment,the level of literacy of infectious disease prevention in Hebei province was 28.80%. Compared with the females as the reference,the males had lower literacy of infectious disease prevention (OR=0.809, 95%CI: 0.722–0.906); Compared with the group 65–69 year-old,the group 15–24 year-old ,the group 25–34 year-old ,the group 35–44 year-old and the group 45–54 year-old were more likely to have the literacy of infectious disease prevention, and their ORs were 1.600 (95%CI: 1.105–2.316), 2.088 (95%CI: 1.608–2.711), 2.055 (95%CI: 1.675–2.521) and 1.568 (95%CI: 1.299–1.893) respectively; The residents with undergraduate and above were used as a reference,the lower the level of education,the lower the level of literacy of infectious disease prevention. The junior college,high school/higher/secondary,junior high school,primary school, illiterate/ less literate ORs (95%CI) were 0.667 (95%CI: 0.503–0.885), 0.594 (95%CI: 0.461–0.765), 0.427 (95%CI: 0.330–0.552), 0.216 (95%CI: 0.162–0.290) and 0.135 (95%CI: 0.080–0.226) respectively.

  Conclusion  The level of literacy of infectious disease prevention in Hebei province is still low.When the health promotion work is carried out,it is necessary to focus on the elderly,the lower educational level of the population and the males as the key intervention group. Different strategies should be developed on literacy on infectious disease prevention promotion according to the characteristics of populations．