April 2020 - Health Literacy Lab

Coronavirus/Covid – Good Enough for Sesame Street But Not US Adults

Posted on April 25, 2020 by Public Linguist

Covid 19 is complex.
Complex science.
Complex health.
Complex social behavior.
It’s by definition a complex emergency.

And we know from 30 years of research that, millions and millions ( maybe 50%) of the US public has great difficulty with fundamental science concepts, health information and also has poor reading skills.

The popular wisdom held by many in the field of healthy literacy is to “simplify” health and science language. Jettison complex terms and, of course, jargon.

This following example, advice offered up by a leading social media influencer in health literacy, was posted this week.
For me it raises serious and disturbing questions about the consequences of continually gatekeeping and fabricating language that in now ways prepares people for all the varied science and health language they here all around them.

The Post:

Ditch “novel.” Normally, we might swap “novel” for “new” in plain language materials, but “the new coronavirus” sounds a bit like a shiny new car. And at this point, COVID-19 doesn’t feel so novel anyway.

So let me get this right.

It’s ok to introduce Sesame Street audiences to the words”coronavirus” and “Covid 19” – but not good for adults.

I propose, rather simply, that this kind of communication by subtraction and substitution has succeeded over the last decades to distill out basic health and science concepts that are fundamental to understanding and engaging in complex health issues. The Covid19 pandemic is a complex health issue.

I’d urge #wehearthealthliteracy and many others who work diligently and honestly to create good, meaningful health and science messages for at risks publics, to think about the significance of what they are saying and doing here.

Are you sure you’re ready to accept the consequences of gatekeeping the fundamental terms people should be exposed to and learn? How are you not contributing and perpetuating the already enormous divide in access to information we se being played out, once again, in this current complex emergency?

Communication by subtraction and substitution has distilled out basic health and science concepts that are fundamental to understanding and engaging in complex health issues. The Covid19 pandemic is a complex health issue.

Covid19 – Simple information and disproportionate risk

Posted on April 23, 2020 by Public Linguist

This is the 4th in a series of Soundbites: Health Literacy and Covid

We’ve simplified and DISTILLED OUT most of the FOUNDATIONAL HEALTH AND SCIENCE CONCEPTS from easy to read/ simplified information. During a pandemic this puts many millions at disproportionate risk.

Click HERE to view the video seminar

Covid19: “Sneeze into your sleeve” won’t cut it anymore

Posted on April 9, 2020 by Public Linguist

Yesterday I was listening to author Reid Wilson, Epidemic: Ebola and the Global Scramble to Prevent the Next Killer Outbreak talk about epidemics on NPR yesterday. He was reflecting on what occurred during the Ebola outbreak and how it relates to today’s Covid19 pandemic.

He was using a powerful example of how people in West Africa changed their burial habits. Liberians began cremated, changing a thousands year old cultural burial tradition. They did this in order to protect themselves and their community. Reid goes on to state that he is seeing the same thing around the globe today during the Covid crisis. He sums it all up by saying:

“People are intelligent. And if you give them the proper information on how to protect themselves they will go as far as to change the practices that their culture has used for of a thousand years in order to protect themselves in the short run from a virus. That tells me we have to put a premium on disseminating intelligent, timely and correct information. Giving the people the tools to protect themselves would save a lot of lives.” (Reid Wilson 4/9/20 NPR)

Timely for those of us who are thinking about how to create intelligent, truthful message that gets beyond the ubiquitous basic hygiene message we see during each outbreak (H1N1, SARS).

Here is the third in a series of Soundbites Seminars on Health Literacy and Covid19. I’m grateful to the innovative thinkers in public health communication (from as far away a New Zealand and Greece) who took part in this series. This session explored the role and limits of simple and simplified information in a complex world.

Click HERE to view video

Math and Covid 19: video of online Seminar

Posted on April 7, 2020 by Public Linguist

I this 2nd online discussion we identified many types of math that are required to understand the information presented by public health officials, experts, the media and politicians.

Thank you to all the participants who tuned in from as far away as New Zealand and Canada!

Feedback about this topic and ideas for new Soundbite Seminars on Health Literacy and Covid 19 are much appreciated.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW VIDEO

Lost in Covid 19 Numbers: Numeracy in America

Posted on April 2, 2020 by Public Linguist

Pick a number, any number. (Stay with me here)

Now, assume your number is the amount of calories in one serving of “krall.” If your doctor told you that you need to limit your daily caloric intake to 1500 calories, what percentage of your daily total does a serving of krall represent?

So, you’re thinking – “One serving of krall has 400 calories. That’s 37% of my 1500 calories, so if I eat this I’ll blow around 1/3 of all the calories I’m allowed for the day. Forget about the krall today.”

If you figured this out easily YOU ARE IN THE SMALL MINORITY OF ADULTS IN THE US WITH ADEQUATE NUMERACY (MATH) SKILLS.

Numeracy = a person’s ability to understand and work with numbers. It helps to think of functional categories of health numeracy: basic, computational, analytical, and statistical.(Lipkus and others, 2001; Peters and others, 2006).

We’ve known for decades that more than half of US adult have low health literacy- reading, writing and working with numbers . (Kirsch, I., Jungeblut, A., Jenkins, L. and Kolstad, A. (1993); Nielsen-Bohlman, L., Panzer, A. M. and Kindig, D. A., eds. 2004). Poor and marginalized populations are disproportionately low health literate and struggle with numerical info.

Given that public health experts ( and others) are almost exclusively using numbers ( rates, probabilities, percentages, – graphs, charts and animated statistical models) to talk Covid we must ask WHO ARE THEY TALKING TO?

Why have they picked the most difficult way to talk about the risk of Covid and the path of the pandemic?

Concerning for many reasons, not the least is that low numeracy interferes with what people understand about health and taking protective actions and inability to work with the math leaves people far more susceptible to pseudo-science (Hibbard and Peters 2003; Peters et al. 2007).

Another important consequence of low numeracy is it can lead ” either to unfounded and crippling anxieties or to impossible and economically paralyzing demands for risk-free guarantees (Paulos 1989).”

I’m hosting a virtual (Zoom) seminar tomorrow ( registration is full) BUT I’ll be posting the recorded session here and on my website immediately afterward. So please check back.

Thank you

Soundbites: Health Literacy & Covid 19

A seriess series of talks meant for those working to communicate Covid 19 to patients and the public. The series makes use of knowledge from linguistics, language comprehension and reading, public health, information processing and risk perception and psychology. Each session will be about 45 minutes with time for questions throughout.

Led by Christina Zarcadoolas PhD

& Health Literacy Lab

https://healthliteracylab.com/