Internet Resources on Health Literacy & Patient Education
Adult meducation: improving medication adherence in older adults.
American Society on Aging and the American Society of Consultant Pharmacists Foundation. 2012
The American Society on Aging (ASA) and the American Society of Consultant Pharmacists (ASCP) Foundation have collaborated on the development of Adult Meducation: Improving Medication Adherence in Older Adults, a web-based program to educate ASA and ASCP members on important aspects of medication adherence in older adults. Materials on the web site can be copied or downloaded for use in educational or training programs.
Agency For Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ): Health Literacy
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's (AHRQ) mission is to produce evidence to make health care safer, higher quality, more accessible, equitable, and affordable, and to work within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and with other partners to make sure that the evidence is understood and used.
- Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's Health Literacy Universal Precautions Toolkit
- This toolkit provides information on designing easy-to-read materials and strategies for addressing health literacy issues.
- The Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool (PEMAT) and Users Guide: An Instrument To Assess the Understandability and Actionability of Print and Audiovisual Patient Education Materials
- The Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool (PEMAT) is a systematic method to evaluate and compare the understandability and actionability of patient education materials. It is designed as a guide to help determine whether patients will be able to understand and act on information. Separate tools are available for use with print and audiovisual materials.
- Personal Health Literacy Measurement Tools
- The AHRQ-supported tools are for the assessment of health literacy in speakers of English and Spanish, the languages most frequently spoken in the United States.
- Short Assessment of Health Literacy - Spanish and English (SAHL-S&E)
The Short Assessment of Health Literacy–Spanish and English (SAHL–S&E) is a new instrument, consisting of comparable tests in English and Spanish, with good reliability and validity in both languages. Persons being examined in English or Spanish are presented with 18 test terms. For each term a key word with a related meaning and a distractor word unrelated in meaning to the test term. This tests the subject's comprehension as well as pronunciation (decoding) of health-related terms. Administration of the test takes only 2-3 minutes and requires minimal training. Administration of these instruments could be facilitated by using laminated 4"-by-5" flash cards, with each card containing a medical test term printed in boldface on the top and the two association words"”i.e., the key and the distracter"”at the bottom. - Rapid Estimate of Adult Literacy in Medicine - Short Form (REALM-SF)
The Rapid Estimate of Adult Literacy in Medicine"”Short Form (REALM-SF) is a 7-item word recognition test to provide clinicians with a valid quick assessment of patient health literacy. The REALM-SF has been validated and field tested in diverse research setting, and has excellent agreement with the 66-item REALM instrument in terms of grade-level assignments. - Short Assessment of Health Literacy for Spanish Adults (SAHLSA-50)
The Short Assessment of Health Literacy for Spanish Adults (SAHLSA-50) is a validated health literacy assessment tool containing 50 items designed to assess a Spanish-speaking adult's ability to read and understand common medical terms. Administration of the test takes 3-6 minutes. The SAHLSA was based on the Rapid Estimates of Adult Literacy in Medicine (REALM), known as the most easily administered tool for assessing health literacy in English. However, it is important to note that SAHLSA-50 results are not comparable with REALM results. Users who are interested in comparing the health literacy ability of English and Spanish speakers are advised to adopt SAHL-S&E.
Assessing and Developing Health Materials
The Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health: Health Literacy Studies. Includes assessment tools and general guidelines.
ATOS for Text
"ATOS for Text is used to calculate the readability level for shorter text passages such as magazine and newspaper articles, test items, and other classroom materials. The resulting ATOS level does not include any adjustment for overall length (word count) and is expressed as ATOS Level."
Beyond the Brochure: Alternative Approaches to Effective Health Communication: A Guidebook
The AMC Cancer Research Center, with collaboration and support of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Division of Cancer Prevention and Control, 1994
Brochure to assist health educators and health communicators in conceiving and producing educational materials and activities that do not rely solely on the printed word. [80 p.]
CDC's Gateway to Health Communication: Training, Tools & Templates
Centers for Disease Control & Prevention's online portal for health communication. The Training, Tools & Templates section contains links to health literacy resources, social medial tools, images and interactive media
CDC: Plain Language Materials & Resources
Includes Everyday Words for Public Health Communication.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Plain Language Thesaurus for Health Communications
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Marketing, 2007
This Plain Language Thesaurus aims to help make health information clear and easy to understand. This thesaurus offers plain language equivalents to medical terms, phrases, and references that we often use. The technical terms found in health information can be confusing
Center for Disease Control and Prevention"s Simply Put: A Guide to Creating Easy-to-Understand Materials
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 3rd ed. 2009
The guidance in Simply Put helps you transform complicated scientific and technical information into communication materials your audiences can relate to and understand. The guide provides practical ways to organize information and use language and visuals. This guide will be useful for creating fact sheets, FAQ's, brochures, booklets, pamphlets, and other materials, including web content.
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services: Toolkit for Making Written Materials Clear and Effective
This eleven part toolkit emphasizes using a reader-centered approach to develop and test patient education material and includes information on developing materials for the internet.
Clear & Simple: Developing Effective Print Materials for Low-Literate Readers
Updated and expanded “Clear & Simple” for contemporary use by NIH. Clear & Simple outlines a process — five standard steps — for developing health information materials for people with limited-literacy skills. The 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy found that about 14 percent of 18,500 adult Americans surveyed could not read, or understand text written in English and could only comprehend basic, simple text.
Communicating Risks and Benefits: An Evidence-Based Users' Guide.
FDA. 2011
Designing Print Materials: A Communications Guide for Breast Cancer Screening
International Cancer Screening Network, 2007
Includes worksheets, checklists, tables and audience assessment.
Digital.gov: Resources
Website on guidance on building better digital services in government.
- Spanish Language Style Guide and Glossaries: Spanish Health Care Terms in the United States
- Introduction to Plain Language
Easy to Read Health Information
MedlinePlus. Alphabetical list of easy to read medical information from MedlinePlus
Guide to Providing Effective Communication and Language Assistance Services
Health and Human Services, Office of Minority Health
The Guide is designed to help you and your organization communicate effectively with patients with diverse communication needs and preferences. Requires one-time free registration to view the guide.
Guidelines for easy-to-read materials
International Federation of Library Association and Institutions, 2010
IFLA Professional Reports, No.120
Health Communications Playbook
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR). 2018
Covers key communication materials for consumers and professionals and includes practical resources like: Annotated examples of fact sheets, press releases, and more; Research-based tips and step-by-step instructions»Worksheets to help you get started; Checklists to review when you’re done.
Health Literacy and Patient Safety: help patients understand: manual for clinicians. 2nd ed.
AMA. 2007
The Health Literacy & Plain Language Resource Guide, 2nd ed.
Health Literacy Innovations, 2018
The guide offers health care providers and educators resources to improve health communications with patients with different cultural and linguistic needs. It includes toolkits, suggested communication standards, books, and much more.
Health Literacy Fact Sheets
Center for Health Care Strategies
Series of fact sheets on various aspects of health literacy.
- Health Literacy: Policy Implications and Opportunities
- Improving Oral Communication to Promote Health Literacy
- Improving Print Communication to Promote Health Literacy
- Health Literacy and the Role of Culture
- How Is Health Literacy Identified?
- What Is Health Literacy?
Health Literacy Online A Guide for Simplifying the User Experience, 2nd ed. U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.
This research-based guide discusses why and how to design health websites and other digital health information tools for all users, including the millions of Americans who don’t have strong reading or health literacy skills—as well as those who don’t have a lot of time to find, process, and use complex health information.
The Health Literacy Style Manual
Southern Institute on Children and Families, 2005
Prepared for Covering Kids & Families [98 p.]
Health Literacy Tool Shed
The Health Literacy Tool Shed is an online database of health literacy measures. The site contains information about measures, including their psychometric properties, based on a review of the peer-reviewed literature.
Hemingway Editor
The Hemingway Editor app highlights lengthy, complex sentences and common errors; if you see a yellow sentence, shorten or split it. If you see a red highlight, your sentence is so dense and complicated that your readers will get lost trying to follow its meandering, splitting logic. Also provides readability grade.
LINCS (Literacy Information & Communication System, Department of Education): Teaching Skills That Matter--Health Literacy
The Teaching the Skills That Matter in Adult Education project (TSTM) trains teachers to integrate the skills that matter to adult students using approaches that work across critical topics. Using the project's tools and training, adult education teachers can teach the transferable skills students need in these critical contexts.
Minnesota Health Literacy Partnership
The mission of the Minnesota Health Literacy Partnership is to improve the health of all Minnesotans through clear health communication. Resources include:
National Cancer Institute: Dictionary of Cancer Terms
Plain Language: Getting Started or Brushing Up
This website consists of five sections and a checklist you can print. In each section, you will find a number of cards you can flip through to learn about using plain language in your work. NIH.gov
A Plain Language Checklist for Reviewing Your Document
A checklist you can refer to as you write. NIH.gov
PlainLanguage.gov
Plain Writing Act of 2010; plain writing guidelines, examples and health literacy.
Readability Test
This free online software tool calculate various readability measurements like Coleman Liau index, Flesh Kincaid Grade Level, ARI (Automated Readability Index), SMOG. Document readability is the indication of number of years of education that a person needs to be able to understand the text easily on the first reading. Comprehension tests and skills training. Tool is made primary for English texts but might work also for some other languages. It displays also complicated sentences (with many words and syllables) as suggestion what you might do to improve its readability." From Online-Utility.org
Rural Health Information Hub (RHIhub): Rural Health Literacy Toolkit
This toolkit compiles evidence-based models and resources to support organizations implementing programs to improve health literacy in rural communities across the United States.
Doak, Doak & Root (1996). Teaching Patients With Low Literacy Skills. 2nd ed. Lippincott.
Classic text on teaching health literacy.
Ten Attributes of Health Literate Health Care Organizations
Cindy Brach, Debra Keller, Lyla M. Hernandez, Cynthia Baur, Ruth Parker, Benard Dreyer, Paul Schyve, Andrew J. Lemerise, Dean Schillinger. (27 p.) June 19, 2012
A wide range of organizations have recognized that having health literate health care organizations benefits not only the 77 million Americans who have limited health literacy, but also the majority of Americans who have difficulty understanding and using currently available health information and health services. This paper presents 10 attributes that exemplify a health literate health care organization. Each attribute includes a brief elaboration of the meaning of and basis for the attribute, followed by a set of implementation strategies that can be used to achieve the attribute.
Translating Materials for Non-English Speaking Audiences
Center for Medicare Education, 2000
Issue brief vol.1 no. 3
University of Michigan Libraries Plain Language Medical Dictionary