Category: We Heart Health Literacy

As you may have noticed, we’re all about accessibility here at We ❤ Health Literacy Headquarters. But that’s not only because designing for people with disabilities is the right thing to do — it can also make health materials better for everyone. Win-win!

We’ve shared general web accessibility tips before. But one area that often gets overlooked when it comes to accessibility is designing for people with learning differences like dyslexia.

Up to 1 in 5 people worldwide have dyslexia, which causes problems with reading. That’s a lot of people who could potentially miss out on your content!

Try these tips to make your website more accessible for people with dyslexia:

• Watch your fonts. Large sans serif fonts like Arial, Century Gothic, and Tahoma work best. Or try OpenDyslexic, a font designed specifically for people with dyslexia. (Some people with dyslexia find a much-maligned little font called Comic Sans easy to read — but let’s not go there.)
• Consider color contrast. We’re all for high contrast as a general rule, but black text on a white background can be difficult to read for people with dyslexia. Dark gray text on an off-white or light gray background is a solid compromise.
• Let users customize your site. Provide a few options so users can select the font, text size, text color, and background color that work best for them.
• Say it with visuals. Reinforce written content with icons, photos, and videos. That’s a good idea anyway, but it can really help people with dyslexia work around troublesome text.
• Make search easier. Incorporate suggested search terms so users don’t have to remember or spell a specific term perfectly to find what they’re looking for.
• Keep it short and sweet. Nobody will thank you for huge walls of tiny text — least of all users with dyslexia. So stick to 55-ish characters per line and aim for short sentences.

The bottom line: A few simple design changes can make your website more accessible for users with dyslexia.

Tweet about it: Want to make your website accessible for users with dyslexia? Try these tips from @CommunicateHlth: https://bit.ly/2pDZkap

Here at We ❤ Health Literacy Headquarters, we believe that everyone deserves health information that’s easy to understand. And everyone means everyone — including kids. But how do you communicate complicated health information to young audiences?

Depending on the child’s age, a good old-fashioned chat may work better than written materials. So today, we’re sharing tips for talking to kids about health. And just like when talking to older adults, the best approach is to be clear, not patronizing.

When you talk to kids about their health — or a family member’s — follow these tips to help them understand:

• Use developmentally appropriate terms — not baby talk. There’s a happy medium between “Pop Pop got a booboo in his brainsy wainsy” and “Young sir, your grandfather has suffered a ruptured cerebral aneurysm.” We bet you can find it!
• Tell the truth. When children ask hard questions, you might be tempted to feed them soft answers. But don’t let protective urges lead to outright lies. If someone in the family has an incurable illness, telling a child that the doctor will make it all better will only make them feel betrayed in the long run.
• Set clear expectations. Unknowns are scary! So if you have to say something alarming like “you’ll be in a cast for the next 6 weeks,” follow it up with something reassuring like “you can still annoy your brother with your other arm.“
• Keep the conversation going. No one likes a long-winded medical lecture, and kids absorb information better in lots of little doses. So make sure they know who to ask if they have more questions — or if they just need someone to talk to about all the info you’ve shared.

The bottom line: Be clear and honest when communicating with kids about health issues.

Tweet about it: Honesty is the best policy when communicating with kids about health issues. @CommunicateHlth shares tips to communicate with younger audiences: https://bit.ly/351z9td #HealthLit

In general, people tend to associate health care with curing diseases. You get sick, the doctor makes you all better! Bada bing, bada boom.

But what happens when there’s no cure in sight? Or when there’s a cure, but it causes nasty side effects? Or when you want your doctor to focus on how you’re feeling and not just how fast your cancer is growing? That, dear readers, is where palliative care comes in.

Palliative care treats symptoms, rather than aiming to cure a disease. It eases pain, helps people function with chronic conditions, and puts patient preferences at the center of health care decisions. It recognizes that quality of life is just as important — or even more important — than keeping people alive at all costs.

Sounds nice, right? But palliative care often gets a bad rap — or no rap at all! Most people have never even heard of it. So as health communicators, we have an opportunity to debunk the misinformation and spread the word about this important type of health care.

Try these tips when writing about palliative care:

• Introduce the term — and define it in plain language. First things first: if you’re writing about palliative care, make sure your readers understand it from the get-go. Start with something like, “Palliative care focuses on helping people with very serious illnesses feel better — with the goal of improving their quality of life.” Then you can get into examples (like pain management) to drive it home.
• Skip the doom and gloom. While palliative care is often part of end-of-life or hospice care, it’s not the same thing. Focusing on easing symptoms does not equal throwing in the towel, and plenty of people get palliative care and go on to live long, healthy lives.
• Stress that it’s not either/or. Doctors often provide palliative care alongside aggressive treatments — like treating nausea caused by chemotherapy. So don’t set up a choice between curing the disease and finding relief from symptoms and side effects.
• Promote shared decision-making. A doctor following clinical practice guidelines in a vacuum may default to aggressive treatments in search of a cure. But palliative care requires real conversations between doctors and patients — so take this chance to sneak in some education around shared decision-making.
• Empower patients to choose. Palliative versus curative care isn’t always an either/or choice — but sometimes it is. And that’s okay. When faced with painful treatments that may only buy a bit more time, people have every right to say no to a potential cure. Choosing to focus on quality of life over quantity of life is a valid choice — so make sure to frame it accordingly.

Bottom line: Palliative care promotes quality of life — so help promote palliative care with quality health communication.

Tweet about it: Think palliative care is all doom and gloom? Think again! @CommunicateHlth has tips for writing about palliative care: https://bit.ly/2NcHYci #HealthLit

Today, dear readers, we’re talking about something that’s hard to talk about: losing a pregnancy. As health communicators, it’s our job to tackle tricky subjects in a way that serves the user — who, in this case, may be grieving and looking for answers. So it’s important to get these materials right.

First, let’s clear up any confusion between these related terms. In the United States, we generally use the following definitions:

• Miscarriage is loss of a pregnancy before 20 weeks
• Stillbirth is loss of a pregnancy after 20 weeks

Well, that was the easy part. Now for the hard part — communicating about a topic that people might rather avoid. There’s no sugarcoating it: losing a pregnancy can be traumatic. But you can take steps to write about it in a useful way.

Try these tips:

• Normalize it. Because these experiences are hard to talk about, they can seem rarer than they actually are. But about 1 in 100 pregnancies ends in stillbirth, and as many as 15 in every 100 known pregnancies end in miscarriage. So when you write about losing a pregnancy, consider mentioning how common it is. That way, people know they’re not alone.
• Humanize it. Patient stories can help people see a way forward from a terrible experience. When you can, include quotes, photos, or videos from people who’ve been there — that’s often the best way to connect with people who are feeling isolated.
• Publicize prevention. Prenatal care and preventive services can help prevent some miscarriages and stillbirths. But, as always in pregnancy materials, be on the lookout for misogyny masquerading as medicine — working outside the home does not cause miscarriages, etcetera.
• Emphasize that it’s not their fault. Most miscarriages happen because of genetic problems, and many stillbirths have no known cause. So be careful not to lay the blame on women. Even when people follow all the prevention guidelines, these things still happen. It’s nobody’s fault. Full stop.

And as always, when you write about a subject that people may find traumatic, tell them where they can find support.

The bottom line: Don’t shy away from discussing pregnancy loss — provide clear, compassionate information about miscarriage and stillbirth.

Tweet about it: It can be hard to write about losing a pregnancy. @CommunicateHlth has #HealthLit tips: https://bit.ly/32pvCEi

As you may have noticed, we really ❤ research here at We ❤ Health Literacy Headquarters! We do user testing to keep our audiences at the center of what we do — and children, like any other audience, have the right to be active participants in research that could affect their health.

Testing with kids can be a lot of fun, but it also comes with unique challenges. Just try doing an eye-tracking study with fidgety pre-teens! Here are some tips to keep in mind when doing research with younger users:

• Choose kid-friendly words. As always, plain language is the way to go. And don’t be afraid to follow their lead — if they call the stimulus material “the dingle,” then you can, too. (But be careful not to patronize! Youngsters, just like older adults, can tell when you’re talking down to them.)
• Keep ’em engaged. Kids fidget, space out, and get distracted. (Well, so do adults. But that’s less relevant here.) Keep things moving, and design activities that help them express their attitudes, experiences, and perspectives. Try using creative testing techniques like design the box or collaging!
• Gather data with your ears and your eyes. Depending on their age, young children may not have the words to explain what they’re thinking. So pay attention to body language and facial expressions — or designate an observer to take notes only on these things.
• Remind kids that what they’re doing is super important. User testing can be a bit of an abstract concept for children to grasp. So take a moment to remind them that the awesome work they’re doing now will help others in the future.
• Have fun. Remember to smile and be friendly — and make sure the moderator takes time to answer the icebreaker questions and build rapport. Sure, you’re at work, but younger participants may respond better if you treat it more like play!

The bottom line: Children make great research participants when you use a kid-friendly approach.

Tweet about it: We believe the children are our future… research participants. @CommunicateHlth shares tips for user testing with kids: https://bit.ly/2Vwinz1 #HealthLit

If you’re a health nerd, you’ve probably done your fair share of academic writing. Maybe you’ve even presented a scientific poster. Bravo! The scientific community needs you. Health care professionals appreciate you. But does anyone outside those fields have any idea what you’re talking about?

We get it, dear readers. Academic research requires a ton of smarts — and it’s tempting to use all that smarty-pants language when writing up the results. But as plain language advocates and health literacy lovers, we declare that the time has come to apply our trusty best practices to academic writing.

Use the tips below when you write up your next batch of brilliant findings.

Set your content up for the web. It’s a good bet that your writing will appear online, so make it web friendly.

• Break up walls of text into short chunks so they’re more approachable
• Add descriptive headers to help readers skim for the info they need
• Use a bulleted list if you’ve got a bunch of items in a sentence

Choose your words carefully. In scientific writing, you’re gonna have some science-y words. But keep in mind that your readers may not know your lingo. So use words everyone can understand.

• Skip unnecessary jargon — for example, say “participants with high blood pressure” not “subjects with hypertension”
• Use necessary jargon terms once, then swap ’em out — if you write “We researched the Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious gene (also known as the Mary Poppins gene),” stick with “Mary Poppins gene” moving forward

Trim the fat. Gone are the minimum page requirements of your college years. So forget adding unnecessary words to hit the page count — in the real world, shorter content is often best.

• Ditch phrases for single words, like “weekly” instead of “on a weekly basis”
• Keep it to one thought per sentence — punctuation is your friend!

And a bonus tip for all you poster session presenters: make a #BetterPoster by stating the main point in a big, easy-to-read font.

The bottom line: Use plain language principles in academic writing — that way, people outside your field can understand it, too.

Tweet about it: Academic writing is full of #HealthLit no-nos. Make your research findings accessible with plain language tips for academic writing from @CommunicateHlth: https://bit.ly/2lOv3E5

When we talk about someone who died by suicide, we often say that they “committed suicide” the way they might “commit” a crime. But suicide isn’t a crime — it’s a public health problem like any other.

Deaths from suicide have a lot in common with deaths from heart attacks: they’re common, often preventable, and may be caused by underlying health problems. In the case of suicide, the underlying cause is usually mental illness. And we think you’ll agree, dear readers, that having a mental illness isn’t a crime. So why do we talk about suicide like it is?

People who have suicidal thoughts — or who have attempted suicide — already face tremendous stigma. When we criminalize suicide in our word choice, we stigmatize them even more. And when people at risk for suicide feel stigmatized by health materials, they’re less likely to find, understand, and use information about lifesaving mental health treatments.

We need to make a stronger connection between suicide and mental illness so that people can access the health services they need — no shame or blame required.

Try these tips when you write about suicide in health materials:

• Skip “committed.” Try the more neutral “died by suicide” instead.
• Go ahead and address common questions about suicide. But try not to linger on language that assigns blame, like “How could someone do this to their family?”
• When you talk about suicide, make sure you also talk about mental health treatment — and direct people to services.

The bottom line: Let’s stop treating suicide like a crime — ditch “committed suicide” and use “died by suicide” instead.

Tweet about it: Let’s stop talking about suicide like it’s a crime, shall we? @CommunicateHlth has thoughts: https://bit.ly/2lLAh33 #HealthLit

Here at We ❤ Health Literacy Headquarters, we ❤ a good, clear rule or best practice. You should know, dear readers, since we often share them with you! But the thing about rules is that they always have exceptions — and today we want to talk about one of those.

We’ve told you before that writing numbers as numerals is generally the way to go in plain language materials. So what’s the exception, you ask? Ordinal numbers! (And if you need a refresher on what exactly an ordinal number is, no worries — it’s coming.)

When you use numbers in health writing, you’re often describing an amount. For example:

• 3 doctors
• 1 in 10 children
• 33 people with cat head

But when you use ordinal numbers, you’re describing the position of something. For example:

• Second leading cause of death
• Sixth round of treatment
• First person to fully recover from cat head

In those examples you’re not describing an amount, so using the numeral might be confusing to readers who are quickly scanning text — as we know folks are likely to do. That’s why, in general, we choose to spell out ordinal numbers under 11.

Certain platforms and word processing systems can also make ordinal numbers harder to read when you go with the numeral approach. Try typing “2nd” into Microsoft Word, for example. Does the “nd” automatically change to superscript? Superscript might be too small for readers to easily see. And we don’t know about you, but we find it a bit distracting.

Disclaimer: this rule (or exception, rather) is a product of our informed opinion, not user testing. But try it out — your readers just might thank you!

The bottom line: Part of clear communication is making text easy to look at, so take it easy on your readers’ eyes and spell out ordinal numbers under 11.

Tweet about it: Spelling out ordinal numbers can make ’em easier on the eyes, says @CommunicateHlth: https://bit.ly/2ZzuY4T #HealthLit