Demonstration of creating documents that are both culturally sensitive and for low-health literacy populations
Healthy Eating for Women over 65
The intended
audience for this Healthy Eating handout (see link above) is Women age 65 and older. This includes women of all races, all
education levels, and people with different values and beliefs. Many strategies were employed to improve
readability of this handout for the low-literacy older population while being
sensitive to cultural differences. Suggestions
from “Simply Put: A guide for creating easy-to-understand materials” were
implemented, such as white space was maximized throughout each page, 14-point
font and bigger was used with serif script for headings and sans serif script
for the body, and text was written in conversation style with an active voice. Catchy
material was included on the first page to attract the target population, such as
pictures of senior, multi-ethnic women and a list of chronic health conditions
common in older adults. A limit of four
health conditions were listed and separated by bullet points for readability,
and medical jargon was avoided. Only four
main ideas were discussed in the handout “Why Healthy Eating?”, “How Much
Should I Eat?”, “What Should I Eat?”, and “How Should I Cook?”, and the ideas
are clearly separated by sections.
According to
Nielsen-Bohlman, Panzer, & Kindig (2004) limited health literacy is greater
amongst older adults. Considering this
handout targets the older adult population and years of education were not specified,
the reading level was maintained at or below 5th grade, determined
by the SMOG formula (“Simply Put”, 2009, p. 31). Limited health literacy also means limited
knowledge of disease management and health-promoting behaviors
(Nielsen-Bohlman, et al., 2004).
Therefore, basic ideas for healthy eating were selected instead of
focusing on more detailed aspects, like specifying serving sizes and daily recommended
allowances. Visuals were included to
assist with interpretation of each recommendation on page two. My grandmother, a member of the target
population, edited the final draft and approved the content and layout, as advised
by the authors of “Simply Put” (p. 23).
She also felt it was important to include a healthy cooking section,
which was added at the bottom of page two.
Multi-cultural spices were listed in that section for cultural
sensitivity.
References
Center for Disease Control and
Prevention, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (2009). Simply put:
A guide for creating easy-to-understand materials.
Retrieved from website:
Executive summary In (2004). L.
Nielsen-Bohlman, A. Panzer & D. Kindig (Eds.), Health Literacy: A
prescription to end confusion (pp. 7-8). Washington, D.C.: National Academy of Sciences.
prescription to end confusion (pp. 7-8). Washington, D.C.: National Academy of Sciences.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,
National Institute on Aging. (2012). Healthy eating
after 50.
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