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From: HealthwaySoftware <mag@healthwaysoftware.com>
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Subject: [NIFL-HEALTH:4561] Re: new colorectal information
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Laurie,
Thank you for your helpful feedback. We are learning a lot about how to
use information technology to provide access to health education for
vulnerable populations. While we hope that our strategy of providing audio
and multimedia to enhance written materials will help, you are certainly
right to point out that words with three or more syllables tend to be
especially problematic. Also, as I am sure you know, even highly educated
patients would generally prefer plain language materials. I have passed
your comments on to Ethnomed as well.
This is an evolving project that was initially designed for providers
rather than targeting patients directly. We are working with a variety of
"providers" outside the healthcare system who work with vulnerable
populations (adult ed, ESL classes, nursing homes, police departments,
refugee resettlement agencies, etc.). Part of this also involved providing
some basic training for staff from these sites since there needs to be
level of comfort with these kinds of materials before they would be likely
to assist their clients/patients. For example, our police department is
using a small MP3 player along with multilingual handouts (all downloaded
from the website) to provide information about domestic violence to
non-English speaking persons who are moving into public housing. This is a
way of eliminating the need to be linked to the internet to use the
materials. Public health nurses have also used downloaded materials on
laptops in people's homes and the county jail. We have also put some of
the multimedia materials onto DVD's and videos and made them available
at-cost. Again, this is a way to take the same content and put it into an
additional format to increase access.
We still have a lot to learn so if you have further feedback after you
have looked at other materials please let us know!
By the way, it is great to see a nurse involved in a literacy program!
- Mary Alice
Mary Alice Gillispie, MD
Healthy Roads Media - Director
At 05:21 PM 10/14/2004, you wrote:
>I am a critical care nurse who is also an adult literacy instructor. I
>have just taken a quick look at your site and am generally much impressed
>with the presentation, with a few caveats.
>
>First, on the main menu of health subjects, a multisyllabic word such as
>sigmoidoscopy or colonoscopy could do with a parenthesized definition next
>to it. I know that my student at a fourth grade reading level would take
>one look at the "long words" and not even try to read them. This could
>cause confusion about which material to read.
>
>I reviewed the instructions on prepping for a colonoscopy with
>Phosphosoda. I very much like the approach and the directions are clear.
>However, with very little effort, some of the vocabulary could be
>simplified to make the information more available to the less literate reader.
>
>Some examples - arrange, escort, procedure (test), rescheduled, arrive,
>special, confirm, according, include. These words could be replaced
>without "talking down" to the reader and yet clarify the information for a
>low-literacy reader.
>
>"Review the diet you need to follow for the next 2 days. Plan your meals
>according to this diet."
>Translation - "These steps say what you can eat for 2 days before the
>test. Make sure you eat only these foods."
>
>"Drink at least 8 glasses of water throughout the day"
>Translation - "You must drink 8 or more glasses of water on this day. Do
>not drink it all at once."
>
>The two sentences "Stop eating seeds, popcorn, nuts and whole grains" and
>"Do not eat any solid food after midnight" are clear, simple and to the
>point, although a definition of "whole grains" might help.
>
>I am excited about this project and plan to review your site in more
>depth. It is gratifying to see such an effort made towards health
>literacy. Now if we could only teach enough low-literacy people to use
>computers, so we can direct them to your site....
>
>Laurie Anson, RN
>Noxen, PA
>Bradford-Wyoming County Literacy Program
>
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