Abstract: Health literacy is one of the hot issues concerned about by the government and scholars.The present study used variable-centered and individual-centered approaches to explore the development characteristics and group types of secondary school students' health literacy.The results showed that:(1) The questionnaire of secondary school students' health literacy has good reliability and validity.(2) There are no significant gender or urban-rural differences in overall health literacy.And girls are significantly better than boys in self-management subscale.The health literacy of lower-grade students in secondary school is significantly better than that of higher-grade students.(3) The health literacy of secondary school students can be divided into three latent groups:the poor health literacy group (about 11%),the general health literacy group (about 51%) and the excellent health literacy group (about 38%).In the excellent group,37% are the first-year students in junior high schools,and only 14%-18% are those students from the second year in junior high schools to the second year in senior high schools.To improve the health literacy of secondary school students,different contents and strategies of health literacy education should be implemented according to different grades,especially the higher-grade students should be paid special attention to.To promote the overall development of students' health literacy,we should especially make a breakthrough in healthy lifestyle education,and cultivate students' positive psychological qualities such as self-esteem,self-confidence and self-reliance.

Key words: core competency, health literacy, secondary school students, group types, latent profile analysis