Making field testing easier makes a difference
Ensuring that written materials are easy to understand and use often starts with plain language best practices and includes field testing to “test” the content, format, and messages with the intended audience. Developers agree that user-centered design and feedback from intended audiences are critically important to developing clear, understandable, and useable information. However, there are often challenges to soliciting meaningful input from the “right” audience members, specifically, those with low literacy or low health literacy.
IHA Health Literacy Awards
Okay, raise your hand if you like to win.
Now, keep it up if you like to be recognized for your great work.
And, keep it up if you LOVE filling out long forms and writing up a check request for the entry fee for an awards program for which your odds of winning are just slightly better than the average Powerball drawing.
Could earlier adoption of health literacy standards have prevented the opioid crisis?
With the 2010 enactment of the Plain Writing Act and National Action Plan to Improve Health Literacy, the development and dissemination of health information that was accurate, accessible and actionable became the focus of regulatory agencies and the medical industry they monitor. The National Action Plan promoted changes to the healthcare industry by requiring improved research communication and medication labeling with the end goal of more-informed decision making by both doctors and patients.
Lost in translation: Making health insurance content clear, not cryptic
A friend on Facebook recently posted, “I just got an email from Blue Cross urging me to ‘use my benefits’ because the end of the year is coming. Honestly have no idea what to make of that.” Especially since after two emergency room visits, “I have super definitely ‘used my benefits’ this year.”
Writing for health insurance customers is tough.
Putting the human into health literacy
Think about your favorite book. It probably kept you turning page after page because it had an engaging storyline, a relatable character, or a situation that resonated in some way with your personal life. Authors tell a story. Yet as healthcare communicators, the story is often removed and what’s left is information. The healthcare industry, however, faces an extraordinary challenge. A Health Affairs study showed that most Americans do not understand basic health insurance terminology. Bridging the gap between information and engagement is a critical piece of health literacy communication.
Making decisions for your health: Getting the info you need
When your doctor prescribes a medication for your child, do you know what the correct dosage is or how to measure it?
Are you comfortable asking your doctor questions when you receive a lab report and don’t understand the results?
If you can answer “yes” to these questions, you might have high health literacy, says Jodi Duckhorn, a social scientist and Director of Risk Communications at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Top five health literacy tips for developing health websites
As members of the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (ODPHP) health literacy team, we are committed to promoting the use of health literacy principles. We recently took a deep dive into the online user experience to write the second edition of Health Literacy Online: A Guide to Simplifying the User Experience, and are honored to have been recognized with a Clear Mark Award for our efforts. We learned a lot about the challenges many people face using health websites. We wanted to share some lessons we learned with those of you who are involved in creating online health content—writers and editors, content managers, digital strategists, user experience strategists, web designers, developers, and other public health communication professionals.
Getting doctors to use plain language and other ways to improve patient understanding
Health professionals have the challenging job of translating the jargon they learned in professional school to everyday language that people can understand. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has help in the form of the AHRQ Health Literacy Universal Precautions Toolkit, Second Edition.
An Rx for plain language
What if the universal precautions approach to health literacy really were universal?
Modeled after medicine’s universal precautions approach to infection control that treats all bodily fluids as they were infectious, this health literacy strategy is well accepted as one that improves communication: Assume it’s hard for all patients to understand health information and to use the health care system.
Queen for a few days
My group won the ClearMark Grand Prize in 2013. We were thrilled! My colleague and I graciously accepted the award and headed for champagne at the bar next door. I lugged the trophy home to New York and proudly displayed it for everyone to see. Our new medical director seemed impressed—nothing like getting a few brownie points with the new boss.
I won employee of the month for leading health literacy/plain language efforts at the March of Dimes. This got me flowers, my name on a plaque, a free lunch and an up-close employee-of-the-month parking space. I was the queen of plain language. I had the trophy and the parking space.
Low health literacy… It could happen to you
It may be hard to believe that nearly 9 out of 10 adults in our country have trouble understanding everyday health information.
And it’s not always because they have not had much education, are aging or poor, or don’t speak English as their native language. There are so many reasons why people—people like you and me—may have low health literacy.