Rohini Khillan, MPH, has been working in the field of public health policy for over a decade in both federal agencies and large nonprofit organizations. While her focus is primarily on issues of aging and disability, Rohini has worked on a variety of topics that include access to care and socioeconomic disparities. Much of her work centers on making complex health topics accessible to a variety of lay audiences through written materials and in-person communication.

In this podcast, Rohini Khillan talks with Helen Osborne about:

• Assume that your audience is already somewhat savvy and knowledgeable about this topic and now interested in clarification.
• Treat your audience like a close friend. Respect their lived experiences, preferences, and habits.
• Always err on the side of inclusivity when it comes to ability and age.

More ways to learn:

• Health in Context of People’s Lives. Health Literacy Out Loud podcast interview with Rear Admiral Paul Reed, MD.
• Building Trust with Each Audience. Health Literacy Out Loud podcast interview with Lenora Johnson, DrPH, MPH
• Communicating Complex Health Messages in a Complex World. Health Literacy Out Loud podcast interview with Glen Nowak, PhD.

Health Literacy from A to Z: Practical Ways to Communicate Your Health Message, Third Edition, by Helen Osborne. Chapters that especially relate to this podcast include “Patient & Family Perspective,” “Health Equity in the Context of Health

Read a transcript of this podcast.

The post Start by Assuming Your Audience is Smart and Savvy (HLOL #247) appeared first on Health Literacy Out Loud Podcast.

Cindy Brach was the lead for health literacy and cultural competence at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and co-chaired the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Literacy Workgroup. Brach led the creation of many important health literacy tools and resources including the AHRQ Health Literacy Universal Precautions Toolkit, the discussion paper, “Ten Attributes of a Health Literate Health Care Organization,” from the Roundtable on Health Literacy, and PEMAT, the Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool.Now retired, Brach reflects on the evolution of the field of health literacy.

In this podcast, Cindy Brach talks with Helen Osborne about:

• Perspective about how health literacy has changed over time. Health literacy began with a realization that written materials were too hard to understand. Soon after, it also looked at spoken communication. Once value-based care came along, patient engagement became a key focus. The goal for many organizations now is to address health literacy systematically and become health literate organizations.
• Developing effective, evidence-based tools to help. Once organizations became aware that there was a problem, they sought tools and strategies to help. AHRQ took a lead role in developing many of them. You can learn more on AHRQ health literacy website and access the AHRQ Health Literacy Universal Precautions Toolkit, 3rd
• Vision and hope for what’s ahead. While a lot has been accomplished in health literacy, there is still more work ahead. In Brach’s opinion, that includes research about which interventions are most effective, how best to implement them, and what organizations get in return for being health literate. It also includes an increased focus on health literacy strategies to promote health equity.

More ways to learn:

• AHRQ Health Literacy website, with tools and resources, including the AHRQ Health Literacy Universal Precautions Toolkit, 3rd
• “Ten Attributes of Health Literate Health Care Organizations,” from the Roundtable on Health Literacy, and AHRQ tools to implement the attributes.
• The Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool (PEMAT) and User’s Guide
• “New Directions for Health Literacy Research,” by Weiss BD, Abrams MA, Mansfield ED, and Sorensen K. Published in HLRP (Health Literacy Research and Practice), December, 2023.
• “PEMAT: Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool (HLOL #109),” a Health Literacy Out Loud podcast interview with Cindy Brach.
• “Attributes of Health Literacy Organizations (HLOL #82),” a Health Literacy Out Loud podcast interview with Cindy Brach.

Health Literacy from A to Z: Practical Ways to Communicate Your Health Message, Third Edition, by Helen Osborne. Many chapters are relevant to this podcast including “About Health Literacy,” “Assessment Tools for Health Literacy,” “Assessment tools for Readability” and “Organizations: Health Literacy Across Programs, Companies, Communities, and Countries.”

Read a transcript of this podcast.

The post Cindy Brach Talks About the Evolution of Health Literacy (HLOL #246) appeared first on Health Literacy Out Loud Podcast.

Aditya Tummala and Beier Nelson are Co-Founders and Executive Directors of The Health Fluency Project. Their goal is to use AI (Artificial Intelligence) and other technology to help dismantle barriers that prevent people from accessing health services. Tummala is an undergrad student at Harvard College studying Biomedical Engineering. His primary focus is on socioeconomic disparities that act as health care barriers in rural and marginalized communities. Nelson is also an undergrad at Harvard College. With a dual concentration in Molecular & Cellular Biology and Government, he is looking at community-based barriers to care.

Tummala and Nelson talk with Helen Osborne about:

• Language, culture, and other differences between patients and providers that can make it even harder to effectively communicate about health.
• Ways to help make this communication easier for everyone. That includes exciting possibilities for using AI and other technology.
• Tips, suggestions, and resources to start using now.

More ways to learn:

• The Health Fluency Project
• “To Advance Health Equity for Patients With Limited English Proficiency, Go Beyond Interpreter Services,” by Nelson B, Tu L, Cody Stanford F. Published in Health Affairs Forefront, October 23, 2023.
• MD & Me, an AI-based medical communication tool from AuxHealth

Health Literacy from A to Z: Practical Ways to Communicate Your Health Message, Third Edition, by Helen Osborne. Chapters that especially relate to this podcast include “Know Your Audience: Culture and Language,” and the three chapters about Technology.

Read a transcript of this podcast.

The post Innovative Ideas for Using AI in Health Literacy (HLOL #245) appeared first on Health Literacy Out Loud Podcast.

Rear Admiral (RDML) Paul Reed, MD is the U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health, the Director of the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, a pediatrician, and a senior U.S. Public Health Service Officer. His primary responsibility is to advise the Assistant Secretary for Health on disease prevention and health promotion programs and policies. Additionally, RDML Reed provides direction and oversight for national health initiatives such as Healthy People 2030, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, and the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness & Nutrition.

In this podcast, RDML Paul Reed talks with Helen Osborne about:

• Finding health in context of people’s lives including in the environments where they live, work, play, grow, and age.
• Reframing health in terms of vital conditions for well-being and justice.
• Building resilience within communities and encouraging citizens to flex their “civic muscles” so as to help everyone reach their full potential.

More ways to Learn:

• Health.gov. Includes important links to health literacy information and resources. From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.
• Health Literacy in Healthy People 2030. Includes the health literacy definitions and objectives in this U.S. public health initiative. From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.
• Vital Conditions for Health and Well-Being Framework, from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.
• “Health and Well-Being Begin with Health Literacy”, a blog post by RDML Paul Reed, October 12, 2021
• “Organizations Have an Opportunity to Enhance Health Literacy”, a blog post by RDML Paul Reed, October 25, 2022.
• “Living Artful Lives to Enhance Health and Well-Being”, a blog post by RDML Paul Reed, March 28, 2023.
• “Establishing Equitable Resilience Requires Shared Stewardship”, a blog post by RDML Paul Reed, January 30, 2023
• “Akron-Summit County Public Library and Healthy People: Prioritizing Educational Opportunities for Community Members”, a blog post that is part of Healthy People 2020 in Review, December 5, 2022
• “Wilmington Area Rebuilding Ministry and Healthy People: Repairing Homes to Help Ensure Safety and Independence”, a blog post that is part of Healthy People 2020 in Review, November 9, 2022.
• “Sacramento Public Library and Healthy People: Prioritizing Health Literacy to Meet Community Members’ Needs”, a blog post that is part of Healthy People 2020 in Review, October 26, 2022.

Health Literacy from A to Z: Practical Ways to Communicate Your Health Message, Third Edition, by Helen Osborne. Especially relevant to this podcast are the chapters, “Community Connections,” “Health Equity in the Context of Health Literacy,” and “Organizations: Health Literacy Across Programs, Companies, Communities, and Countries.”

Read a transcript of this podcast.

The post Health in Context of People’s Lives (HLOL #244) appeared first on Health Literacy Out Loud Podcast.

Akila Muthukumar graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College with a major in human developmental and regenerative biology and a minor in English. Muthukumar helped establish and lead a question-listing service at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. She also has done a lot of writing, including for the health and medicine website, STAT News. She hopes to combine these interests as a physician-writer. This year, Muthukumar is living in rural south India (where she recorded this podcast) and working at a nonprofit dedicated to people with intellectual disabilities.

In this podcast, Akila Muthukumar talks with Helen Osborne about:

• Helping patients make a list of questions to ask at upcoming medical appointments.
• Strategies to help patients think of, and organize, their questions.
• Ways that this question list can benefit patients, providers, and students

More ways to learn:

• “The question list is a simple way to help patients prepare for appointments,” by Akila Muthukuma Valliammai, Leigh Simmons, and Karen Sepucha, STAT News, First Opinion. September 5, 2023.
• UCSF: The Patient Support Corps
• “Decision Support for Patients Making Life-Changing Choices (HLOL #49),” a Health Literacy Out Loud podcast interview with Jeff Belkora.
• “Questions Are the Answer to Helping Patients Understand Their Health,” by Helen Osborne. Published in On Call Magazine, June 25, 2008.

Health Literacy from A to Z: Practical Ways to Communicate Your Health Message, Third Edition, by Helen Osborne. The chapter “Question-Asking” is especially relevant to this podcast.

Read a transcript of this podcast.

The post Helping Patients Prepare Lists of Questions to Ask at Medical Appointments (HLOL #243) appeared first on Health Literacy Out Loud Podcast.

Katie Leath MPH, MA, is Director of the Center for Health Literacy at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS). Leath is a passionate health communicator who brings years of experience in making health information easy to read, understand, and use. She leads a team of health literacy experts who create and edit health-related materials for patients and consumers. Leath brings to all this work her training in marketing, public health, and applied communication studies.

In this podcast, Katie Leath talks with Helen Osborne about:

• The process of taking health materials written in English that already adhere to plain language practices and then translating this information into other languages while also adhering to plain language practices.
• Teaching translators about plain language so that they can apply these practices when working on health information.
• Translating health materials in ways that help readers understand is an important step towards equity and improved health outcomes.

More ways to learn:

• University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) Center for Health Literacy
• Contact the UAMS Center for Health Literacy to learn more about their program for training translators to use plain language. You can also ask to be added to the mailing list for the Center’s blog.
• National Academy of Medicine, “Beyond Translation: Promoting a New National Standard for Equity in Health Materials Translated from English” by Sprager L and Martinez ON.
• Leath mentioned two readability formulas for materials in Spanish. These are the “SOL formula” and “Fernandez Huerta.”

Health Literacy from A to Z: Practical Ways to Communicate Your Health Message, Third Edition, by Helen Osborne. Chapters that are especially relevant to this podcast are “Know Your Audience: Culture and Language,” and “Plain Language.”

Read a transcript of this podcast.

The post Applying Plain Language Principles to Translated Health Materials (HLOL #242) appeared first on Health Literacy Out Loud Podcast.

Richard Lui is an award-winning journalist with more than 30 years in media, technology, and business. He has served as a television news anchor at MSNBC, NBC News, and CNN Worldwide. Among his many accomplishments, Lui spent 15 years in business, serves on boards at non-profit organizations and for-profit firms, and is an ambassador for non-government organizations (NGO’s) focusing on issues of gender equality and human trafficking. Lui is author of the book Enough About Me and director of two documentary films. His first film SkyBlossom, was inspired by his own long-distance caregiving for his father. The second film Unconditional: When Minds Hurt, Love Heals deals with issues of mental health and family caregiving.

In this podcast, Richard Lui talks with Helen Osborne about:

• The experience of learning about caregiving as a family member. That includes the need to interact with a team of health professionals and develop a plan for the family to address the many aspects of caregiving.
• The decision to create a documentary film about this experience. How the powerful medium of film can highlight what might otherwise be considered as a “ho-hum” topic of family caregiving.
• The importance of educating others that mental health can be a strength, not just a challenge.

More ways to learn:

• Unconditional: When Minds Hurt, Love Heals. This film has been, or soon will be, screened at AMC theatres, Universal Studios, the White House, the US Capital, MSNBC, the United Nations, and the European Parliament. It is available for streaming on multiple platforms including Amazon Prime and PBS Passport.
• SkyBlossom. As described on its website, this is “an inspiring film on children taking care of family living with disabilities.”
• Enough About Me: The Unexpected Power of Selflessness, a book by Richard Lui, published 2021.

Health Literacy from A to Z: Practical Ways to Communicate Your Health Message, Third Edition, a book by Helen Osborne. Especially relevant to this podcast is the chapter, “Patient and Family Perspective.”

Read the transcript of this podcast.

The post Creating a Documentary Film about Caregiving and Mental Health (HLOL #241) appeared first on Health Literacy Out Loud Podcast.

Greg O’Neill, MSN, APRN, AGCNS-BC, is Director of Patient & Family Health Education at ChristianaCare in Delaware. Building on his experience in patient care as a trauma/surgical ICU nurse, O’Neill has developed a team of professionals who champion health literacy best practices systemwide and support all manner of patient education initiatives and vendor relationships.

In this podcast, Greg O’Neill talks with Helen Osborne about:

• A systems perspective of health literacy. The value of looking at health literacy from a high level, considering its many components.
• Components include 3 essential elements: Tools (teaching materials), Skills (health literacy best practices), and People (including leaders and advocates).
• Ways to apply these elements in a variety of settings.

More ways to learn:

• ChristianaCare: Who We Are
• Health Literacy Listening Tour (HLOL #188). Podcast interview with Audrey Riffenburgh.
• Thinking Big About Health Literacy (HLOL #155). Podcast interview with Mary Ann Abrams, Cyndi Hall, and Shelby Chapman.
• Making a Case to Senior Leaders about Health Literacy (HLOL #151). Podcast interview with Barbara Balik.

Health Literacy from A to Z: Practical Ways to Communicate Your Health Message, Third Edition, by Helen Osborne. Especially relevant to this podcast is the chapter, “Organizations: Health Literacy Across Programs, Companies, Communities, and Countries.”

Read a transcript of this podcast.

The post Health Literacy from a Systems Perspective (HLOL #240) appeared first on Health Literacy Out Loud Podcast.

Dr. Mark V. Williams serves as Professor & Chief of the Division of Hospital Medicine at the Washington University School of Medicine and BJC HealthCare in Saint Louis, Missouri. Dr. Williams established the first hospitalist program in a U.S. public hospital and continues to promote the role of hospitalists as leaders in the delivery of health care. In addition, he is an active researcher whose work focuses on quality improvement, care transitions, teamwork, and the role of health literacy in the delivery of health care.

In this podcast. Mark Williams talks with Helen Osborne about:

• “Inadequate Functional Health Literacy Among Patients at Two Public Hospitals,” published in JAMA 1995, by Williams MV, Parker RM, Baker DW, Pankh NS, Pitkin K, Coates WC, Nurss JR. As the authors noted, this likely “is the first published study to assess the ability of patients to perform the wide range of literacy tasks required to function in the health care environment.”
• Why health literacy mattered so much then, and still does now.
• Examples of ways that clinicians can use health literacy strategies to earn patients’ trust and help people feel cared for, and cared about.

More ways to learn:

• “Inadequate Functional Health Literacy Among Patients at Two Public Hospitals,”published in JAMA 1995, by Williams MV, Parker RM, Baker DW, Pankh NS, Pitkin K, Coates WC, Nurss JR.
• “Inadequate Literacy is a Barrier to Asthma Knowledge and Self-Care,” published in Chest1998, by Williams MV, Baker DW, Honig EG, Lee TM, Nowlan.
• “Relationship of Functional Health Literacy to Patients’ Knowledge of Their Chronic Disease,” published in JAMA 1998, by Williams MV, Baker DW, Parker RM, Nurss JR.
• “The Role of Health Literacy in Patient-Physician Communication,” published in Family Medicine 2002, by Williams MV, Davis, TD, Parker RM, Weiss BD.
• “Embracing carers: when will adult hospitals fully adopt the same practices as children’s hospitals?” published in BMJ 2023, by Williams MV, Li J.

Health Literacy from A to Z: Practical Ways to Communicate Your Health Message, Third Edition, by Helen Osborne. The first chapter, “About Health Literacy” is especially relevant to this podcast.

Read a transcript of this podcast.

The post Health Literacy: Helping Patients Feel Cared For, and Cared About (HLOL #239) appeared first on Health Literacy Out Loud Podcast.

Claire Wardle, PhD, is co-founder and co-director of the Information Futures Lab and Professor of the Practice at Brown University’s School of Public Health. Wardle is considered a leader in the field of misinformation, verification, and user generated content. Among her many accomplishments, Wardle developed an organization-wide training program about eyewitness media for the British Broadcasting Company and was a Fellow at the Shorenstein Center for Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School.

In this podcast, Claire Wardle talks with Helen Osborne about:

• Artificial Intelligence (AI). When machines can do tasks that would previously have required human intelligence. The machines learn by scanning millions of documents and images looking for patterns. The new AI tools now accessible to the public (like ChatGPT) not only can retrieve information but also create new work based on these patterns.
• AI as a tool of health communication. How our jobs might shift from writing the basics to focusing more on the creative side of this work.
• AI and health content. The importance of verifying content and citations, and being transparent about the use of AI in our materials.

More ways to learn:

• OpenAI, ChatGPT (for text)
• OpenAI, Dall-E2 (for images and art)
• Canva (to create professional designs, posters, and reports)
• “This Video May Not Be Real,” A New York Times video Op-Ed by Claire Wardle about “deepfakes.”

Health Literacy from A to Z: Practical Ways to Communicate Your Health Message, Third Edition, by Helen Osborne. Especially relevant to this podcast are the three chapters about technology.

Read a transcript of this podcast.

The post Artificial Intelligence & Health Communication (HLOL #238) appeared first on Health Literacy Out Loud Podcast.

LouAnn Bala MSN, RN, brings a background as clinical nurse educator and health coach to her work at Get Well. Her publications and research aim to improve quality and safety for patients, further the study of alternative and lifestyle medicine, and build the case for using technology to improve care delivery. Bala has created numerous patient education materials on topics about youth mental health, transmittable diseases, and civility in the workplace.

In this podcast, LouAnn Bala talks with Helen Osborne about:

• The impact of civility on human interaction and the importance of respecting and learning about our differences.
• Why civility is now more difficult to attain for reasons that include less in-person communication, more screen time, and ongoing multi-tasking.
• Ways to foster civility in healthcare, online, and in the community.

More ways to learn:

• Get Well: Personalized care for all
• Global emotions report (2022) The Gallup Organization. Washington, D.C.: Gallup Organization.
• “Using Design to Get Readers to Read and Keep Reading (HLOL #29),” a podcast interview with Karen Schriver, PhD

Health Literacy from A to Z: Practical Ways to Communicate Your Health Message, Third Edition, by Helen Osborne. Especially relevant to this podcast is the chapter, “Know Your Audience: Emotion, Cognition, and Behavioral Health.”

Read a transcript of this podcast.

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