Category: We Heart Health Literacy

In the new year, resolve to make your targeted, actionable, plain language online health content easy to find. How? By making it appear in relevant searches on Google and other search engines. This is known as search engine optimization (SEO).

Try these simple steps to improve your SEO.

Use words your audience is searching for.
Writing about myocardial infarctions? Be sure your content mentions heart attacks, too. (But you knew that already.)

It’s also important to include related words that people may use to search. For example, you may not have a shot at coming up first on Google for “asthma,” but you can improve your chances for searches like “how to make an asthma action plan” if those words are in your content.

Include key terms in headers and linked text.
Search engines weigh headers and linked text more heavily than body text. A header that says “Introduction” or a link that says “More information” doesn’t help people find your content.

Meaningful headers like “Shop for low sodium foods” and actionable links like “Use this calculator to figure out your BMI (body mass index)” are much better for SEO.

Provide a text version of graphics.
Image files (like JPGs or PNGs) are invisible to search engines. No matter how much time you’ve spent making that awesome infographic, it will be harder for people to find if you don’t include alt text or an HTML version, too.

Make the meta description brief and clear.
The meta description is the text that displays below the link title on a search results page. It doesn’t affect search results, but it helps users decide whether to click on a link. Think of it as the elevator pitch for a webpage. Since you can’t change a first impression, make it a good one.

Write stellar content.
In the end, the #1 thing you can do to make your information more findable is to write clear content that people want to read. Sound familiar, dear readers?

The bottom line: Don’t worry about keywords or complicated formulas for SEO. Just write good plain language content — and remember alt text and descriptions.

Wishing you, our dear readers, a happy and healthy holiday season!

We hope your new year is filled with plain language, clear design, and calls to action.

Cheers,
Your friends at CommunicateHealth

Welcome to the first installment of the We ❤ Health Literacy Book Club! We’re starting off with a book we’d recommend to anyone who writes web content: Ginny Redish’s Letting Go of the Words: Writing Web Content that Works. (It’s also required reading here at CommunicateHealth.)

Redish says that writing for the web is all about figuring out what your readers want and then giving it to them. In order to do this, she advocates for paying attention to your audience and building your site around what they need to know — not what you want to tell them. That way, your readers can get the information they need and get on with their day.

Letting Go of the Words clearly explains key issues that apply to all websites, like the difference between a home page and a content page. Plus it discusses specialty topics, such as creating style guides and writing legal language people can understand (yes, it can be done!).

We’re also fans of the great design tips and the notes about accessibility that are integrated throughout. And, true to its own message, the book provides all these helpful details without using too many words.

The bottom line: Letting Go of the Words is a guided tour through the basic principles of user-centered design and web content development.

Every writer needs a topic. But for health writers, a topic alone won’t do the trick — you need both a topic and a message.

To communicate effectively, be sure to give your readers a take-away. Offer information on a health topic, and then provide a message that answers questions like, “What do I do with the information you’ve given me?” or “How is this information relevant to me?”

Take global warming, er… climate change, for example. Here’s some text on the topic of climate change:

Earth’s average temperature has risen over the past century, and will likely continue to rise over the next 100 years. This increase in temperature will cause big changes that may harm our water, food, energy, environment, and health.

If you’re like us, you read these sentences and think, “So what?” You’re looking for a message. Maybe it’s something like:

Earth’s average temperature has risen over the past century, and will likely continue to rise over the next 100 years. This increase in temperature will cause big changes that may harm our water, food, energy, environment, and health. You can help lessen these effects by recycling paper, glass, and plastic.

In the second example, there’s still background information on the topic, but it goes one step further to let readers know how they can take action. In other words, there’s both a topic and a message.

The bottom line: When you write about health, make sure you include a message that helps your readers take action.

Here at CommunicateHealth, we’re genuinely humbled by and thankful for you, our dear readers.

So this year, we want to make sure you’re ready to show off your health communicator skills at the Thanksgiving table.

• Remind your guests to keep everyone healthy by washing their hands before eating.
• Check out these food safety tips for turkey preparation so you can answer ALL the questions in the kitchen. (Bonus: What finer host gift than a new meat thermometer?)
• Make sure to hand out extra helpings of vegetables.
• Remember to use potholders!
• Express your thanks for the Affordable Care Act. This will surely get ’em talking. Then you can subtly sneak in some health insurance literacy. More deductible, anyone?
• And when folks start dozing off after dinner, let them know they can’t blame the tryptophan in the turkey. It’s not the turkey’s fault.

The bottom line: Have a happy and healthy Thanksgiving, everyone.

We ♥ health literacy, of course! But where did that term come from, anyway?

The term “health literacy” dates back to a 1974 article by Scott Simonds, which advocated for health to be part of standard education requirements, like writing and math. Like so many other inventions from the 1970s — video games, Post-It notes, and Walkmen — health literacy has come a long way since then.

A newer definition in use today traces back to a National Library of Medicine Bibliography from the year 2000. It says that health literacy is:

• The degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions.

This mouthful of a definition was adopted in 2000 by Healthy People 2010, and by the Institute of Medicine in 2004. It was updated again in 2010 when health care reform was passed. The new law only added one word to the earlier definition, but it’s an important one.

• Title V of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act defines health literacy as “the degree to which an individual has the capacity to obtain, communicate, process, and understand health information and services in order to make appropriate health decisions.”

To make things easy, we often shorten it to:

• Health literacy is the ability to find, understand, communicate, and use health information.

Some researchers now describe health literacy as “dynamic,” meaning that people’s health literacy varies depending on their emotions and stress level as well as on which medical problem they have, how their doctor communicates, and other aspects of the health care system. We ♥ this view of health literacy because it takes into account the give and take between patients and the health care system as a whole (if you dig this, check out our post on the Calgary Charter).

The bottom line: The concept of health literacy has been around since the 70s, but it’s grown up since then — and it’s still evolving.

TV and movies can be powerful tools for conveying health messages to a wide audience. A 2008 report by the Kaiser Family Foundation and USC Annenberg found that 1 out of 4 people say that “entertainment television” is one of their top sources of health information. That’s a lot of people! And it means that TV is a potential platform for improving health literacy.

Successful collaborations between TV producers and public interest groups have bolstered public health campaigns about issues like smoking, seatbelt use, and designated drivers. Researchers found that an episode of the crime show Numb3rs that focused on organ donation directly inspired more people to become donors. And when Katie Couric had a colonoscopy live on national TV in 2000, colonoscopy rates increased by more than 20% in the months that followed.

We did our own (informal) research around the office and asked: What’s your favorite depiction of the importance of health literacy in popular culture? Do you remember a movie or TV show that changed your understanding of a health issue?

Some of us remembered the fails better than the successes — when shows pushed an issue in a clumsy, preachy, afterschool special way. One of our designers, Cozette, called out the 1990s high school sitcom Saved by the Bell’s legendarily over-the-top attempt to warn kids about the risks of caffeine pills. Jessie Spano’s highly-caffeinated freak-out would go on to launch a thousand .gifs.

Other staff noted that shows and movies about zombies — once C-grade horror staples — now tend to be mini lessons in epidemiology, complete with facts about vectors and exposure pathways. The zombie apocalypse survivors on The Walking Dead even visit CDC! (Better yet, CDC got in on the fun as a way to promote messages about preparedness.)

But our favorite — or at least our most sincere — story about health literacy intersecting with pop culture came from Amy, a senior editor. She said:

I saw an episode of ER in the 1990s in which a woman died because she accidentally overdosed on pills. She and her husband only spoke Spanish. The main characters were struggling to find out why the woman died, and then the big reveal happened — the medicine label said, “Take once a day.” But “once” is the word for “eleven” in Spanish. My middle school mind was blown.

The bottom line: Public health messages in pop culture can be effective teaching tools — and we’re sure to see a lot more of them in the future.

Wouldn’t it be great if science always gave us simple answers? You run some tests, look at some data, and BAM! — you arrive at a straight-forward, easy-to-understand conclusion (think “the world is round”).

As it turns out, science rarely works that way. Most studies reveal a whole bunch of complicated results. Like, “the substance has a 10% chance of harming you,” or “1 out of 4 study participants had fewer symptoms after taking the medicine.” In other words, they’re fuzzy.

As health communicators, we’re often charged with explaining these fuzzy findings. But how do you do that and still keep your message clear?

The key, as usual, is to think about your audience.

Do your readers want to know that 7 out of 10 studies show that 95% of people with a certain condition who took a drug had side effects, but were also 25% less likely to go to the emergency room? Probably not.

Rather, your readers want to know what the studies mean for them. It’s up to you to tease meaning out of these findings and translate them into plain language.

So, instead, you might say:

Some people who take this medicine don’t have as many flare-ups of their condition, so they’re less likely to need an emergency room visit. But most people who take the drug have side effects, like feeling dizzy or coughing. Talk to your doctor to see if the drug is the right choice for you.

Even if findings are complicated, they don’t need to be confusing.

The bottom line: You don’t have to relay the nitty-gritty of complicated scientific findings. Instead, write about what the findings mean for your reader.

Lately, we’ve been giving a lot of thought to something that comes up again and again in our plain language conversations: the medical consent form.

The consent form issue is a tricky one for a number of reasons — there are legal implications, and different doctors or hospitals might have specific requirements. There’s also the loftier ethical discussion about what informed consent actually is (and whether it’s truly possible to obtain it).

But without going too far down that road, we want to suggest that perhaps the conversation isn’t about the form itself, but rather when to get consent.

We know people’s ability to understand and use health information is affected by how sick, anxious, or scared they are. Why, then, do health professionals present these often unwieldy and confusing consent forms at the time of a health service or procedure?

Of course we acknowledge that emergency care is different and, depending on the circumstances, there may be no other choice. But there are many, many medical procedures that are not emergencies — and for those, health professionals often ask for patients’ consent minutes beforehand.

Our proposed solution? Move the consent form process (and discussion) to an appointment before the service takes place. Patients need to hear about the risks of the procedure before they’re sitting in front of the doctor in a gown.

Here’s an example: You’re going in for a colonoscopy. You’ve taken the day off from work, secured someone to drive you home, and fasted for a day. The nurse asks you to sign a consent form. Are you going to read it carefully? Is this the moment that you are going to ask your doctor about all your options?

We didn’t think so. And who can blame you? You’re hungry, anxious, and resigned. From the consumer perspective, the “consent” form was totally useless.

But what if you got all of the information and had the opportunity to discuss it with your doctor at your last appointment? Would you think a little bit more about what it means to sign on the dotted line? We bet you would.

The bottom line: To make consent forms truly effective, look at the whole process — not just the words on the paper.