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Public Health

Comparison of Readability of Official Public Health Information About COVID-19 on Websites of International Agencies and the Governments of 15 Countries

Educational Objective
To understand the importance of ensuring full accessibility of Official Public Health Information about COVID-19 on governmental websites

1 Credit CME

JAMA Network Open

Published Online: August 18, 2020

Research Letter

Article Information and Disclosures

Vishala Mishra, MBBS¹;

Joseph P. Dexter, PhD²

Author Affiliations

¹Multidisciplinary Research Unit, Madras Medical College, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
²Neukom Institute for Computational Science, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire

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Containment strategies for the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic have required broad public compliance, yet complex, contradictory, and false information proliferates.¹ The American Medical Association (AMA), National Institutes of Health (NIH), and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommend that medical information for the public be written at no higher than an eighth-grade reading level.² We evaluated the readability of online information about COVID-19 provided by government and public health agencies and departments.

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Article Information

Accepted for Publication: July 14, 2020.

Published: August 18, 2020. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.18033

Open Access: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC-BY License. © 2020 Mishra V et al. JAMA Network Open.

Corresponding Author: Joseph P. Dexter, PhD, Neukom Institute for Computational Science, Dartmouth College, 27 N Main St, Hanover, NH 03755 (joseph.p.dexter@dartmouth.edu).

Author Contributions: Drs Mishra and Dexter had full access to all of the data in the study and take responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis.

Concept and design: Both authors.

Acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data: Both authors.

Drafting of the manuscript: Both authors.

Critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content: Both authors.

Statistical analysis: Both authors.

Obtained funding: Dexter.

Supervision: Dexter.

Conflict of Interest Disclosures: Dr Dexter reported receiving grants from the American Council of Learned Societies and from the Neukom Institute for Computational Science during the conduct of the study. No other disclosures were reported.

Funding/Support: This work was supported by a Digital Extension Grant from the American Council of Learned Societies and a Neukom Fellowship.

Role of the Funder/Sponsor: The funders had no role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript; and decision to submit the manuscript for publication.

Additional Contributions: Pramit Chaudhuri, PhD (University of Texas at Austin), provided helpful discussions and comments on the manuscript, and Anish Chattopadhyay (AIIMS Patna), Cuiwei Guo, MBA (Northeastern University), and Vasudha Mishra (AIIMS Patna) assisted with data collection and curation. None of these individuals received compensation for this work.

References

Paakkari L , Okan O . COVID-19: health literacy is an underestimated problem. Lancet Public Health. 2020;5(5):e249-e250. doi:10.1016/S2468-2667(20)30086-4 PubMed Google Scholar Crossref

Badarudeen S , Sabharwal S . Assessing readability of patient education materials: current role in orthopaedics. Clin Orthop Relat Res. 2010;468(10):2572-2580. doi:10.1007/s11999-010-1380-y PubMed Google Scholar Crossref

Jin T , Lu X , Ni J. Syntactic complexity in adapted teaching materials: differences among grade levels and implications for benchmarking. The Modern Language Journal. 2020;104(1):192-208. doi:10.1111/modl.12622 Google Scholar Crossref

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Simply put: a guide for creating easy-to-understand materials. Accessed April 5, 2020. https://www.cdc.gov/healthliteracy/pdf/simply_put.pdf

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Everyday words for public health communication. Accessed April 5, 2020. https://www.cdc.gov/other/pdf/everydaywordsforpublichealthcommunication.pdf

Kressin NR , Gunn CM , Battaglia TA . Content, readability, and understandability of dense breast notifications by state. JAMA. 2016;315(16):1786-1788. doi:10.1001/jama.2016.1712 PubMed Google Scholar Crossref

AMA CME Accreditation Information

Credit Designation Statement: The American Medical Association designates this Journal-based CME activity activity for a maximum of 1.00  AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

Successful completion of this CME activity, which includes participation in the evaluation component, enables the participant to earn up to:

1.00 Medical Knowledge MOC points in the American Board of Internal Medicine's (ABIM) Maintenance of Certification (MOC) program;;
1.00 Self-Assessment points in the American Board of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery’s (ABOHNS) Continuing Certification program;
1.00 MOC points in the American Board of Pediatrics’ (ABP) Maintenance of Certification (MOC) program;
1.00 Lifelong Learning points in the American Board of Pathology’s (ABPath) Continuing Certification program; and
1.00 CME points in the American Board of Surgery’s (ABS) Continuing Certification program

It is the CME activity provider's responsibility to submit participant completion information to ACCME for the purpose of granting MOC credit.