Cynthia Baur, PhD, works at the U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and leads CDC’s health literacy and plain language initiatives. Among her many accomplishments, Dr. Baur is lead editor of the National Action Plan to Improve Health Literacy and with Dr. Christine Prue, also of the CDC, co-developed CDC’s Clear Communication Index.
In this podcast, Cynthia Baur talks with Helen Osborne about:
- What CDC’s Clear Communication Index is, why it’s needed, and how it compares to other communication assessment tools.
- How to use the Index when revisiting, revising, or creating a wide range of public communication products. These include print materials, web postings, audio scripts, and social media messages.
More Ways to Learn:
- The CDC Clear Communication Index. More information along with a User Guide and Index score sheet available at http://www.cdc.gov/healthcommunication/ClearCommunicationIndex/
- Suitability of Assessment of Materials (SAM). Full description and scoring sheet can be found in Doak, Doak & Root’s Teaching Patients with Low Literacy Skills, Second Edition. Available online at http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/healthliteracy/assessing-materials/
- Osborne H (host), Zikmund-Fisher B (guest), “When Communicating Risk, Consider What Patients Need and Want to Know” HLOL podcast #102. At http://healthliteracy.com/hlol-risk
- Osborne H (host), Baur C (guest), “National Action Plan to Improve Health Literacy,” HLOL podcast #39. At http://healthliteracy.com/hlol-national-health-literacy-action-plan
- American Medical Writers Association (AMWA), http://www.amwa.org
Health Literacy from A to Z: Practical Ways to Communicate Your Health Message, Second Edition (Updated 2018), by Helen Osborne. Relevant chapters include: 1, 2, 3, 6, 16, 26, 30.
To read a transcript of this podcast, go to http://healthliteracy.com/transcript.asp?PageID=11786
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