With the advancement of the "Healthy China Initiative (2019-2030)", the popularization of health knowledge has become increasingly important. General practitioners play a crucial role in grassroots health science popularization, but the current popularization effect is not satisfactory. Given the unique role of families in health promotion, conducting research from a family perspective can help improve the health literacy of the entire population and optimize health science popularization services.

To understand the attributes of health science popularization demands of residents in different family types, explore the differences in the attributes of health science popularization demands of residents, and provide references for general practitioners to carry out health science popularization work.

From August to October 2023, a random sampling method was adopted to select one district and one county within the provincial health literacy monitoring sites in Henan Province. A questionnaire survey was conducted among permanent residents aged 15 to 69. Family types were divided into three categories: nuclear family, extended family, and single-person household. A health science popularization demand attribute questionnaire based on the Kano model was used to analyze the health science popularization demands of residents from different family types. The questionnaire covered six dimensions: content of health science popularization, forms of health science popularization, ways to access health knowledge, timing of health science popularization activities, institutions trusted by residents for health knowledge dissemination, and personnel trusted by residents for health knowledge dissemination.

A total of 606 valid questionnaires were collected. Among the respondents, 286 (47.2%) were from core families, 263 (43.4%) from extended families, and 57 (9.4%) from single-person households. Among core family residents, 6 attractive attributes, 8 expected attributes, 3 reverse attributes, and 17 indifferent attributes were identified; among extended family residents, 10 attractive attributes, 8 expected attributes, 3 reverse attributes, and 13 indifferent attributes were identified; among single-person households, 18 attractive attributes, 1 reverse attribute, and 15 indifferent attributes were identified. The Better-Worse matrix diagram distributions of the demands of residents from the three family types were different.

There are differences in the demands of residents from different family types regarding the content, form, way, time, institution, and personnel of health science popularization. General practitioners should strengthen chronic disease prevention and family health care skills for residents of core and extended families, focus on nutrition and self-protection knowledge for residents of single-person households, and flexibly match the forms and timing of health science popularization according to different family types.