Category: We Heart Health Literacy

Here at We ❤ Health Literacy Headquarters, we ❤ movies that put real-world public health heroes in the spotlight. Bonus points if that hero is played by a trash-talking, leopard-print-wearing, evil-corporation-fighting Julia Roberts. That’s right, dear readers — we’re talking about the 2000 biopic Erin Brockovich.

This award-winning film follows Brockovich as she exposes how the Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E) poisoned the residents of Hinckley, California, by contaminating their water with cancer-causing hexavalent chromium. She digs up the dirt, gets the victims organized, and helps win a record-setting $333 million settlement in a class-action lawsuit.

She must be an Ivy League-educated lawyer, right? Or a privileged, polished, public health expert? Nope. At the time, Brockovich had no legal training, no public health experience, and none of her adversaries’ sense of boardroom propriety.

Nevertheless, her actions exemplify some of our favorite best practices for protecting the health of vulnerable communities.

• Use plain language. While PG&E’s corporate lawyers use jargon and fine print to intimidate and confuse the victims, Brockovich tells it straight: “You were lied to. You’re sick and your kids are sick because of those lies.”
• Build empathy with community members. Brockovich goes door to door in Hinckley, looking people in the eye, sitting at their kitchen tables, and learning their stories.
• Find the right evidence. Much like Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha investigating blood lead levels in Flint, Michigan, Brockovich goes far beyond her job description to unearth the incriminating paper trail on Hinckley’s water contamination.
• Make the stakes personal. Rejecting a low-ball settlement offer from the PG&E corporate lawyers, Brockovich points to their water glasses: “We had that water brought in special for you folks. Came from a well in Hinckley.”

The movie’s humor stems from a mismatch between perceptions of Brockovich (that she’s uneducated, unprofessional, and therefore incompetent) and her actual ability to tenaciously pursue facts, stand up to corporate strong-arming, and help right societal wrongs.

The bottom line: Never underestimate the role of community members and non-experts in protecting public health. Oh, and go watch Erin Brockovich.

Tweet about it: What makes Erin Brockovich a public health hero? Find out when @CommunicateHlth goes to the movies: https://bit.ly/2NyQhyr #HealthLit

In our newest series, Health Literacy in the Wild, we’re showing how you can apply health literacy principles in your workplace. Today’s edition will help your projects run more smoothly and your team stay more organized.

Ready? Let’s talk about meeting notes!

Here at We ❤︎ Health Literacy Headquarters, we’re busy designing infographics, building websites, and creating user-centered materials. And while it may not be the most exciting thing about the process, holding effective team meetings that produce clear takeaways about what’s happening next is part of what makes the magic happen.

Here’s how to draw from health literacy best practices to become a note-taking rockstar:

• Summarize next steps. If you’re pressed for time and can’t record anything else, jot down the next steps, who’s going to do them, and when they need to be completed.
• Keep it brief. Remember, you’re writing meeting notes, not a meeting transcript. Keep your notes focused on major updates, decisions, and next steps. Just like any well-written health material, the most helpful meeting notes are scannable and easy to read.
• Use active voice. We ❤ active voice for pretty much all writing, but it’s especially important in meeting notes. “Kate will revise the fact sheet” is a lot more helpful than “The fact sheet will be revised.” (Also, there’s no shame in getting by with a little help from the zombies if you have trouble telling the difference between active and passive voice.)
• Be specific. The best meeting notes are the ones that anyone can pick up and understand — even someone who wasn’t at the meeting. Instead of “Change the color to blue,” try “Pat will change the call-out box background color to the blue from the 9/22 color palette.”
• Share notes soon after you meet. It’s good practice to jot down notes during a meeting, clean them up immediately after, and send them out within a day. This way, you’ll help keep your team on track!

The bottom line: Your team will thank you for taking clear, actionable meeting notes. And that’s a health literacy win!

Tweet about it: How can #HealthLit principles help you take better meeting notes? @CommunicateHlth has tips: https://bit.ly/2w5U2EI

As plain-language-loving health communicators, we’re always looking for simple ways to share information clearly and effectively. This week, dear readers, we’re talking about a super useful tool for enhancing your plain language health content: including quotes from the target audience.

So why do we ❤ quotes in health content so much?

They can make your content friendlier and more relatable. Quotes from your target audience give content a valuable personal touch that helps readers better understand how information applies to them. Quotes can also inspire trust and confirm that the information you’re sharing is reliable.

For example, if you’re trying to encourage parents to take steps to keep their kids healthy, including a quote from an actual parent can help personalize the message and add credibility.

• Get active with your kids! Try to find activities you enjoy together, like taking a walk or going for a bike ride.
• “My daughter and I love to dance together. We spend a few minutes before dinner dancing to our favorite songs — and sometimes the whole family joins in!”

They help reinforce your messaging and inspire action. Quotes are a great way to reach audiences that may be hesitant to take the next step in their health journey. Your readers may be more inspired to change their behavior if they hear real-life success stories from people they can relate to.

For example, if you’re trying to encourage people with depression to seek help, it might be easier for a reader to follow advice from someone who’s been in their shoes.

• If you think you may be depressed, getting help is the most important thing you can do.
• “I’m really glad I talked to a counselor. He helped me remember that I’m not alone — and I have a lot of support.”

The bottom line: Quotes from real people can help you connect with your audience and emphasize the importance of your messaging.

Tweet about it: Can we quote you on that? @CommunicateHlth talks about the benefits of using quotes in #HealthLit content: https://bit.ly/2OHfdno

Here at We ❤ Health Literacy Headquarters, we love to keep sentences and paragraphs short and sweet. But what happens when you really need a lot of words to communicate something clearly?

Our advice: if it’s a choice between brevity and clarity, choose clarity every time. Health information can be complicated! And sometimes you just need more words to tell your readers what they need to know.

Let’s look at a couple of examples. Which of these options works best?

• Your out-of-pocket maximum is the most you have to pay for covered health care services in a plan year.
• Your out-of-pocket maximum is the most you have to pay for covered health care services in a plan year. After you spend this amount on deductibles, copayments, and coinsurance for in-network care and services, your health plan pays 100% of the costs of covered benefits.

In this case, longer is definitely better, right? The second sentence (courtesy of HealthCare.gov) gives helpful context for a tricky health insurance-related term.

In general, it’s best to fight the urge to use a more jargony phrase just to lower your word count. Here’s another example:

• You may have swelling at the injection site.
• You may have swelling where you got the shot — usually on your upper arm.

Again, more words — but way clearer.

So remember, dear readers, a higher word count isn’t always the enemy. And you can still look for opportunities to break up longer sentences and “chunk” your content into bulleted lists or short paragraphs.

The bottom line: Sometimes, writing in plain language means using more words — and that’s okay!

Tweet about it: .@CommunicateHlth explains that sometimes clear communication means more words — and it’s okay! https://bit.ly/2KES4zJ #HealthLit

Picture this: a young surgeon dissects a cadaver in the basement of a teaching hospital. With his bare hands, he rummages around in decomposing organs, palpates the heart, and examines the brain. Then he wipes his hands on his bloody apron, walks upstairs to the maternity ward, and with those same hands… delivers a baby. Dun dun duuun!

That’s just one of many gruesome scenes in Lindsey Fitzharris’s book, The Butchering Art. Fitzharris shows us surgery in the bad old days before germ theory and antiseptics, tracing the path of medical progress through the central figure of Joseph Lister. That’s right — the man who inspired Listerine!

As Lister searches for a way to prevent post-operative infections, Fitzharris treats us to plenty of shocking historical details — including a surgeon who amputated a leg so fast he also lopped off a testicle. But what really stands out in this tale is the importance of 2 basic rules of public health:

• Use evidence-based practices
• Share information with partners

The case of Ignaz Semmelweis is a great example. Fitzharris explains that this doctor figured out how to prevent puerperal (or childbed) fever a full 20 years before Lister announced his antiseptic system. Semmelweis guessed that surgeons were transferring “cadaverous particles” from corpses to laboring mothers, so he set up a handwashing station. And boom! No more childbed fever.

But did Semmelweis become a public health hero? Was childbed fever a thing of the past? Sadly, dear readers, that’s a big nope. No one believed him, and he died in a mental institution “raging about childbed fever and the doctors who refused to wash their hands.”

Lister faced much the same resistance from the medical community when he introduced his antiseptic system, and way too many people died of preventable infections before the health care system got its act together.

The good news is, we can learn from this gory history lesson. Next time the evidence supports a new way of doing things (like, say, using plain language in your health communications), work with partners to create policies that fit the facts. It’s much more productive than putting progressive thinkers in an asylum.

The bottom line: Read The Butchering Art to learn how antiseptics made surgery a lot less disgusting.

Tweet about it: How did public health pioneers help surgery clean up its act? @CommunicateHlth reads “The Butchering Art” by @DrLindseyFitz: https://bit.ly/2LmsjsW

We’re always on the lookout for health literacy in the news. So earlier this month, we were psyched to see a joint statement on the term “chestfeeding” by La Leche League’s USA and Canada chapters. We got even more excited when we saw that they’re using tried-and-true health communication strategies to back it up.

“Chestfeeding” is a term that many transgender men and gender non-binary parents use to describe feeding their children with their bodies. It’s another word for the action more commonly known as “breastfeeding” or “nursing.”

As La Leche League explains, they’re not replacing the term “breastfeeding” with “chestfeeding.” Rather, they’re encouraging their volunteer leaders to tailor language to match the terms that parents themselves prefer to use. That’s right, they’re using the language their audience uses — and you know how much we ❤ that.

Gendered language can contribute to health disparities by making it harder for transgender and gender non-binary people to seek — and receive — quality care. We’ve previously written about other ways that health communicators can be welcoming and inclusive of transgender and gender non-binary audiences, like:

• Using the singular “they”
• Asking about gender the right way (or better yet, not asking at all!)
• Avoiding overly gendered design elements

We’re glad to see La Leche League recognizing the impact that language can have and taking steps to support transgender parents.

The bottom line: Kudos to La Leche League for putting parents first by adding “chestfeeding” to their vocabulary!

Tweet about it: Glad to see @LaLecheLeagueUS and @LLLCanada’s statement on #chestfeeding — #HealthLit principles and transgender inclusivity in action! https://bit.ly/2Lk08Kl via @CommunicateHlth

How are you reading this right post now, dear reader? On a laptop? A smartphone? Your refrigerator, perhaps? Okay, probably not on your refrigerator, but you never know. Much in the way we can’t predict a person’s health literacy skills, it’s pretty much impossible to predict the device that users will be accessing health websites on these days.

Fortunately, there are things you can do to make sure your website will work well for all users on all their devices. Check out our tips.

• Test your site on a variety of devices. It seems like everything has a screen now (see above-referenced refrigerator) — and that means a lot of different screen sizes. Checking your site on a variety of screens can help troubleshoot problems before you get too far into site development.
• Content is king (and queen!). Remember that your content is the most important part of your site. So when you’re looking at your site on various screen sizes, pay special attention to how the content looks. Does anything important disappear on a small screen? Prioritize fixing that before fine-tuning the fancier design elements.
• Keep connection speed in mind. Internet speeds can vary a lot, so be sure to test your site with slower-than-ideal connection speeds. You don’t want someone to get frustrated and leave your site because the homepage is taking too long to load.
• Design for easy clicking. When designing buttons and links, remember that people might be clicking with lots of things — trackpads, mice (mouses?), tiny fingers, or giant thumbs. Will your elegant-yet-miniscule buttons be easy to tap on mobile screens? Probably not — so shoot for large, clearly-defined targets.

The bottom line: Design your website so people can read your content on a smart toaster in a remote mountain town. (We may get there sooner than you think.)

Tweet about it: 4 tips for making your #HealthLit site work for all devices: https://bit.ly/2uex3qc via @CommunicateHlth

True or false? As health communicators, it’s our job to clearly communicate what we know. Okay, that was a trick question. It’s true, of course — but it’s not the whole story. Why? Because it’s also our responsibility to clearly communicate what we don’t know.

In health communication, it can be tempting to steer clear of the unknown. When you want to be seen as an expert, putting what you don’t know in writing can feel a little “off script.” Public health authorities and organizations may worry that admitting what they don’t know will make them seem non-credible or untrustworthy.

But guess what? It’s actually the opposite! Being transparent and telling your audience what you don’t know can build trust in your health messages.

Say you’re writing a fact sheet with findings from a local environmental health assessment. Your audience is a community that’s located near a former factory, and residents have voiced specific health concerns that the assessment aimed to address.

In terms of results, you have a list of things you know for sure — for example, the water’s safe to drink. But the assessment also produced results that aren’t so clear — for example, it’s possible that the soil isn’t safe for growing food, and you need more tests to know for sure.

So, what do you say about those fuzzy findings? Just be direct: “We don’t have enough information to say for sure if the soil near the factory site is safe for growing vegetables. The health department wants to do more tests to find out.”

This kind of openness might seem radical — but in the absence of clear answers, full transparency is the way to go. So fight the urge to be vague or dodgy! Your audience will thank you for telling them the truth.

The bottom line: Transparency builds trust with readers — so embrace the unknown in your health writing.

Tweet about it: How do you talk about what you don’t know in #HealthLit content? Here’s @CommunicateHlth’s take: bit.ly/2Ms20O3

Today, dear readers, we’re talking about links in web content. Links make it easy for people to find more information about a topic of interest — and they can really impact how users navigate your website.

Here are our tips for creating effective links for your awesome plain language health content.

Make links easy to identify. Underlined blue text is the most obvious visual cue for a link. It’s okay to choose a different link design, but make sure it’s distinct from non-linked text — and use a single link design across your site. Don’t forget to choose a different color for visited links — that way, users can easily tell if they’ve already clicked a certain link.

Write helpful link text. The best link text gives users information about where the link will take them. That’s why we’ll ❤ you forever if you banish generic phrases like “click here” from your webcabulary — they tell users nothing about where a link goes.

Helpful link text is especially critical for users who are visually impaired and use screen readers to listen to a list of all linked phrases on a page. Can you imagine how (not) helpful such a list would be if every link said “click here” or “learn more”?

Pro tip: the best link text is both descriptive and actionable. What makes the user experience clearer than link text like, “Read more about diabetes”?

Use links strategically — and beware of link burnout. There’s no magic number for how many links are appropriate on a webpage, but be strategic and keep your users in mind. Try not to have so many links that the content starts to look wonky or difficult to follow.

Also, be mindful of how soon you send users to another page — while they’re reading the introduction of your content probably isn’t the best time for that.

Remember your friends on mobile (which is everyone). It’s always worth taking a look at how content will appear on mobile devices — this gives you a chance to make sure links appear in a way that lets mobile users navigate easily.

The bottom line: How you set up links in your web content really matters.

Tweet about it: Why “click here” just doesn’t click with users — and more #HealthLit tips for creating effective links: bit.ly/2K5zP77 via @CommunicateHlth

In this edition of the We ❤ Health Literacy Book Club, we’re talking about a book that challenges the way many people think about drug addiction and treatment.

Maia Szalavitz’s Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction deconstructs the traditional addiction model. Szalavitz suggests that addiction is not actually a disease, but rather a learning disorder that’s shaped by a person’s environment, repeated behaviors, and genetic predispositions.

Szalavitz, who overcame cocaine and heroin addiction, describes her journey through a 12-step program, the traditional treatment route. While this program has historically been the sole solution for treating addiction, Szalavitz stresses that this one size does not fit all.

She highlights several harm reduction programs that are based on the idea that people who use drugs can learn to make better choices if they’re taught to — and if they have adequate support. For example, needle exchange programs focus on reducing the negative effects of drug use — not preventing use altogether. There’s also Washington State’s Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) program, which connects nonviolent drug offenders to housing and other services in an effort to keep them out of the traditional criminal justice system.

This topic is extremely timely given today’s opioid crisis, which presents an ever-growing need for innovative health literacy solutions — and, as Szalavitz argues, for evidence-based policies that address addiction. Now is the perfect time for all of us who work in public health to challenge ourselves to think outside the box when it comes to understanding and treating drug addiction.

The bottom line: Unbroken Brain offers a new perspective on how we define and treat addiction, with a strong emphasis on compassion and respect.

Tweet about it: Check out a new way of defining and treating drug addiction in @maiasz’s “Unbroken Brain”: bit.ly/2y44Eau #HealthLit