## 1 Introduction
Health literacy (HL) has been recognized to play a key role in the prevention of NCDs in a recent report by the WHO [27]. At an individual level, HL involves having knowledge, confidence and comfort to perform daily activities and social interactions [27]. At an individual level, HL includes access to, understanding of, appraisal of and application of health information [27; 28]. This can be assessed using tools such as the HLS-EU [28]. People with low HL have been shown to possess less knowledge of health conditions and their management [29; 30], to be less likely to engage in self-care of chronic health [31; 32; 33]; and to be less likely to seek help from healthcare providers [30; 33; 34]. In Bangladesh, studies have found that a lack of education and knowledge impacts the ability to engage in and practice health behavior related to chronic disease management [35; 36]. Hence, there is an importance in empowering individuals with knowledge and skills to make health-related behavior changes through appropriately tailored and targeted interventions. Dietary interventions to manage blood pressure in LMICs have included educational components, such as information delivery through lectures and advice sharing, which have demonstrated positive effects on reducing blood pressure [37; 38; 39; 40]. In particular, some interventions in LMICs involve visits by healthcare professionals in home and community-based settings to deliver tailored and targeted lifestyle modification information [41]. Furthermore, emerging evidence reveals potential in non-traditional methods of information delivery through various digital health means, such as mobile phone-based follow-up text messages to cater to current needs [42]. Understanding the target communities' knowledge and strengths is necessary to ensure design of appropriate and effective health interventions [27]. Community-based interventions have been found to be effective in reducing salt intake in Bangladesh [43; 44], as well as in other LMICs [45]. In particular, the importance of addressing low health education to empower and support Banglades individuals living in rural areas so as to encourage the undertaking of behavior change for chronic disease management has previously been demonstrated [46]. The significance of community-based or social environments in skill development and behavioural change may be derived from social learning theories, whereby learning of new skills occurs more effectively in the presence of other people [47; 48], and that social environments encourage attempts at new and unfamiliar tasks [49]. Despite this potential, the literature published on such community-based interventions in LMICs are usually small in scale (i.e., small target groups) and are undertaken in upper income-middle income countries [45]. There is a need to investigate the potential and effectiveness of interventions to reduce hypertension prevalence in low-income countries. Presently, the attitudes and awareness of dietary factors, related to the management of blood pressure, and the association of these factors with socio-demographic factors amongst rural Bangladesh residents are still being determined. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the factors associated with the following, among people with hypertension in a rural area in Bangladesh:  
1. Knowledge of the health benefits of fruit intake and the potential risks regarding excess raw salt intake in managing blood pressure. 2. The current practice of raw salt and fruit intake. 3. The association of dietary raw salt and fruit intake with blood pressure.