Evaluating the health literacy burden of Canada's public advisories: a comparative effectiveness study on clarity and readability.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Significant knowledge gaps exist related to evaluating health product risk communication effectiveness in a regulatory setting. To this end, Health Canada is assessing methods to evaluate the effectiveness of their health product risk communications in an attempt to identify best practices.

Objective

We examined the health literacy burden of Public Advisories (PAs) before and after implementation of a new template. We also compared two methods for their usefulness and applicability in a regulatory setting.

Methods

Suitability assessment of materials (SAM) and readability tests were run by three independent evaluators on 46 PAs (14 "Pre-format change" and 32 "Post-format change"). These tests provided adequacy scores for various health literacy elements and

SUBMITTER: LeBrun M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3834160 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature