Background: Health literacy is the single best predictor of an individual’s health status and health outcomes. It is very important to customize health-related education material to the individual patient’s (or audience’s) level of reading skills. Readability of a given text is very important, as it is the objective measurement of the reading skills one should possess to understand the written material. In most cases, national standards recommend 5-6th grade reading levels. However, many print materials are at 11-12th grade, which can present major compliance programs, especially for the elderly. Example: Think about when you have tried to help for example a grandparent (or even yourself) understands the dosage noted on the medication bottle.
Instructions for Case Study 3
Part 1: Assessing Readability
Read Chapter 11 to learn more about the importance of health literacy and customizing health-related education material to the individual patient’s level of reading.
Conduct research to select a print or electronic health-related education material. Examples include brochure, pamphlet, medicine bottle, flyer or other educational resources from a local clinic, pharmacy, doctor’s office, grocery store, health department, profit/nonprofit agency, or ETC.
Examples of health education materials are shown in Ch. 11 and vastly on the web
Upload your original material to Canvas (so I can see what you are going to review without any edits). If you take a picture, be sure to save as a pdf file. You will not be able to resubmit so please test. Bottom line– Make sure I can open ALL FILES SUBMITTED.
After obtaining the print or electronic health resource, you are to:
Assess the reading level of your print/electronic resources using a readability program. The SMOG formula is very popular. NOTE: There are other readability programs (Refer to Chapter 11). Feel free to use other programs or word processing program on your computer as long as you provide name and reference.
NOTE—Readability Programs– The programs provide instructions for accessing the reading level. Be sure gain general understanding of how the assessment is done.
After examining the reading level, revise your health education resource to be appropriate with 5/6th grade reading level (Refer to Ch. 11).
Now, you can mark your material (using highlights, colors, underline etc.) to identify where changes are needed
So, identify content that needs changing (using your readability program).
for example, maybe the language is more appropriate with 11th grade learning)
Revise to be more appropriate with 6th/5th) grade learning.
You then may want to re-test the content to ensure that you are on the right track (in line with 5th/6th grade learning)
Whatever sentence or word needs changing, highlight, and make a note of this change using highlights, colors, underline etc.
Now, you will upload your MARKED copy of your health education resource to Canvas
Part 2: Instructions for Detailing your Changes
Using a MS Word document, justify your changes based on what learned in chapter 11.
You will document your changes using the format below.
Provide a brief explanation of what you learned. Address:
Provide a brief description of why is it important to address readability of health education materials?
Provide a brief description of how SMOG (or your chosen readability program) assess reading level.
Provide a brief comment about how you apply what you learned from completing this case study personal lives or current/future jobs
NOTE: If you do not get a definite result from your readability program; do you best to base your response on your experience or perception.
EXAMINE THE READABILITY OF AT LEAST 6, no more than 10 CONTENT PIECES
TABLE 1: Documenting Readability Content
NAME/TITLE OF HEALTH EDUCATION MATERIAL (IN-TEXT CITATION)
Before TESTING: (What content DID YOU THINK SHOULD BE CHANGED?
Where can I find what needs to addressed in your file?
Why do you think the reading level needs addressing for this
During TESTING: Reading level (or perceived reading level of original content
How did you change to make content appropriate with 5/6th grades reading level?
Any additional comments/lessons learned (I would love to get your perspective)?
Example of how you would address:
changing the words “once a day”
1st paragraph (Refer to number 3 on my marked version)
It is probably easier to understand “one time a day” compared to “once a day”.
The reading level for “once a day” seems to be for 10th grade audience based on SMOG (or program used).
OR
It seems like what I thought was not 5th/6th grade language actually was.
RESPONSE DEPENDS ON RESULTS