As a health educator, illustrations and photographs in any format can
add value to understanding. But I've found that what's often missed is
the essential need for human interaction. Materials cannot replace the
value of a person taking even 1 minute to explain and teach. Materials
are a great place for mutual understanding, and a health provider,
educator, or even a family member who takes a minute to explain how to
interpret the information can make all the difference in understanding.
When I work on creating materials, I try to think about their
distribution and incorporate messages targeting the distributors that
flyers, resource guides, wesbsites, bookmarks, etc aren't just for
handing out. They are an opportunity to start a conversation, to start a
"learner" on the right foot from the beginning.

*****************************
Megan Sety
Public Health - Seattle & King County
Environmental Health Services Division
Tacoma Smelter Plume Project
megan.sety at metrokc.gov
206-205-5273 

-----Original Message-----
From: healthliteracy-bounces at nifl.gov
[mailto:healthliteracy-bounces at nifl.gov] On Behalf Of Julie McKinney
Sent: Thursday, January 11, 2007 10:22 AM
To: healthliteracy at nifl.gov
Subject: [HealthLiteracy 564] Re: using pictures in health
communications

Hi Everyone,

I am so grateful to all who have shared so much expertise on this
subject! I would like to encourage others to write in and share how you
plan to use the information shared during this discussion. In
particular, I'd like to hear from these different groups to see how it
may encourage you to do something different in your program: 

--Health Educators
--Health Care Providers/Clinicians
--Adult Literacy Educators
--Policy makers

And if you have further questions for Peter, Ceci and Len, I invite you
to ask!

Also, I want to ask those of you on the health side: How can adult
literacy educators collaborate to enhance your efforts at improving
health communication? There is a large group of the most underserved and
least literate people who are being served in the supportive
environments of literacy classes. This group is also most in need of
health information and access to care. Everyone could benefit from this
type of collaboration, and so I would love to get feedback about how
this could work best.

All the best,
Julie

Julie McKinney
Discussion List Moderator
World Education/NCSALL
jmckinney at worlded.org


>>> "Peter S. Houts" <psh2 at email.psu.edu> 01/10/07 9:57 PM >>>

In an earlier message I said I would try to get a pfd file of the review

article that Ceci, Len, and I wrote.  I was successful and it is 
attached.  There are two files - the first is the full article and the 
second is an erratum explaining that one of the figures was incorrect
and 
includes the correct figure.  I am very happy to learn about other 
publications that have been mentioned in this discussion.  I plan to
read 
them all.

I read the article that Sunil Kripalani and colleagues wrote and that he

included as an attachment to his email message.  It is an excellent 
article.  I agree with them that age is a very important parameter for
use 
of pictures - research suggests that elderly people may react
differently 
to pictures - but we don't understand how differently and at what 
ages.  This is an important area for future research.  I also think that

their observation on using complex icons is important.  Some icons (such
as 
clocks) are not easily understood by people with low literacy skills. 
So 
pilot testing is important to be sure icons are meaningful.  In the
study 
with stick figures that I did, we made up some icons to try to make the 
pictures more easily understood - but then found that the subjects often

had trouble remembering what the icons meant.  It really gets back to
using 
simple language to explain what the picture or icon means.  Icons
without 
explanation can lead to confusion.

I agree with Julie that photographs could be helpful and her example was
a 
good one - showing pictures of syringes or pills to illustrate 
instructions.  From her explanation, the pictures were probably very
simple 
- without a lot of distracting detail.  The key is to keep distracting 
detail to an absolute minimum.  If that can be done with photographs,
then 
they will be very useful.  But, as Paul mentioned in his email, it is
often 
easier to keep confusing detail down with simple line drawings.

I am learning a great deal from this discussion and am looking forward
to 
reading more of your ideas.

Peter





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