Menstrual health literacy among adolescents and young adults who menstruate: impact of Christian family background and United States region

To compare menstrual health literacy among adolescents and young adults based on family religious background and United States region. We conducted a cross-sectional online survey of post-menarcheal U.S. adolescents and young adults aged 14-24 years who identified their family religious background, including Christian or non-religious, with recruitment via the social media platform TikTok. We asked participants several questions to assess their health literacy regarding common myths about the use of gonadal steroid hormones for menstrual suppression. From 3,250 online survey respondents, 2,997 met criteria for analysis with 1,989 identifying their family as Christian (66.4%) and 1,008 identifying their family as non-religious (33.6%), with equal representation by U.S. region. Health literacy was lower among those with a Christian family background, with concerns that menstrual suppression is unhealthy (16.4% vs. 10.5% with non-religious background, p