Guidance and Standards | Health Literacy | CDC

Guidance and Standards | Health Literacy | CDC

Having health literacy guidance and standards can help make your health information accessible and actionable. The “Guidance & Standards” section of CDC’s Health Literacy website offers links to tools and references that can get you going in the right direction.

For example, the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, recently released the second edition of Health Literacy Online: A Guide for Simplifying the User Experience. This guide addresses why and how to design health websites and other digital health information tools for all users. Imagine the impact your web-based health information would have if it were tailored to the needs of the millions of people who don’t have strong health literacy skills or free time to study and process complex health information.

Check out the Health Literacy Online Guide and other guidance by visiting our Guidance & Standards webpage.

CDC developed the Clear Communication Index to identify the most important factors that increase clarity and aid understanding of public messages and materials.

The following guidance and standards can help you make your health information accurate, accessible, and actionable.

Communication Guidance

• Clear Communication: An NIH Health Literacy Initiative
  National Institutes of Health
  NIH has established the Clear Communication initiative that focuses on achieving two key objectives of health literacy: Providing information in the form and with the content that is accessible to specific audiences based on cultural competence, and incorporating plain language approaches and new technologies.
• NIH National Cancer Institute “Pink Book” – Making Health Communication Programs Work
  National Cancer InstituteThis book describes a practical approach for planning and implementing health communication efforts. It covers a range of topics, from planning and strategy development, to pretesting materials, to implementing the campaign, to evaluation.

Material Assessment Tools

• Clear Communication Index
  Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
  The CDC Clear Communication Index (Index) is a new research-based tool to plan and assess public communication materials. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) developed the Index to identify the most important factors that increase clarity and aid understanding of public messages and materials.
• Toolkit for Making Written Material Clear and Effective
  Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
  The Toolkit for Making Written Material Clear and Effective is a health literacy resource from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). This 11-part Toolkit provides a detailed and comprehensive set of tools to help you make written material in printed formats easier for people to read, understand, and use.

Standards

• The Federal Plain Language Guidelines
  The Plain Language Action and Information Network (PLAIN)
  The Plain Language Action and Information Network (PLAIN) is a community of federal employees dedicated to the idea that citizens deserve clear communications from government. PLAIN developed and continue to revise The Federal Plain Language Guidelines to provide updated advice on clear communication.
• National Health Education Standards
  The Joint Committee on National Health Education Standards
  The National Health Education Standards (NHES) are written expectations for what students should know and be able to do by grades 2, 5, 8, and 12 to promote personal, family, and community health. The standards provide a framework for curriculum development and selection, instruction, and student assessment in health education.
• National Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS) Standards
  Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Minority Health
  CLAS Standards can help organizations address the cultural and language differences between the people who provide information and services and the people they serve. The principal standard is to provide effective, equitable, understandable and respectful quality care and services that are responsive to diverse cultural health beliefs and practices, preferred languages, health literacy and other communication needs.

Web Communication Guidance

• Health Literacy Online Guide
  Department of Health and Human Services
  This guide is written for web designers, content specialists, and other public health communication professionals. The guide offers an overview of how to deliver online health information that is actionable and engaging, create a health web site that's easy to use, particularly for people with limited literacy skills and limited experience using the web, and evaluate and improve your health Web site with user-centered design.
• Usability.govDepartment of Health and Human Services
  Usability.gov is a one-stop source for government web designers to learn how to make websites more usable, useful, and accessible. The site addresses a broad range of factors that go into web design and development. The site will help you to: Plan and design usable sites by collecting data on what users need, develop prototypes, conduct usability tests and write up results, and measure trends and demographics.