How plain language helps with health literacy

One way to help ease the burden of low health literacy is to improve the readability of print materials used in all health care contexts, including health care research. To this end, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), The Joint Commission, and the Institute of Medicine have all recommended that health information be written in plain language.

For a comprehensive summary of why plain language is one promising solution to our nation’s health literacy crisis, see Stableford and Mettger’s 2007 article,

Plain Language: A Strategic Response to the Health Literacy Challenge.