Objective To investigate the current status of the health knowledge needs among workers in the ferroalloy industry, enhance their health literacy, and develop targeted and effective health intervention measures.

Methods A stratified random sampling method was employed to select employees from a ferroalloy enterprise for this study during August to September 2023. A self-designed health knowledge needs questionnaire was used to conduct an online survey on 12 aspects of health knowledge needs. Six experts in the relevant field were invited to assign subjective weights to different types of health knowledge needs. A fuzzy Kano analysis with entropy weight method (FKANO-EWM) model was used to analyze the results.

Results A total of 159 valid questionnaires were collected from 170 distributed questionnaires, with an effective response rate of 93.53%. The workers' needs for all 12 aspects of health knowledge could be classified into must-be (M), attractive (A), and one-dimensional (O) types. The subjective weights assigned by experts to the three types of needs were μ_M = 0.283, μ_O = 0.337, and μ_A = 0.380, respectively. Based on subjective weights and objective weights of the entropy weight method, the results of the comprehensive weight calculation show that the highest weights were found for "safety and first aid" and "chronic disease prevention" in the one-dimensional types (0.137 and 0.134, respectively), followed by "infectious disease prevention knowledge" in the must-be category (weight 0.107). In the attractive category, "healthy lifestyle and behaviors, " "food nutrition knowledge, " and "provision of diet-related knowledge" were also considered important (weight 0.087, respectively).

Conclusions The workers in the ferroalloy industry showed significant concerns for various aspects of health knowledge. It is necessary to focus on popularizing, promoting, and training knowledge about safety and first aid, chronic disease prevention, infectious disease prevention, and healthy lifestyles and behaviors, as well as food nutrition, among employees in the enterprise.