Abstract
This paper proposes that a focus on reading and literacy can deepen our understanding of information seeking and everyday life information practices. It conceptualizes the role of reading, readability, and literacy in health information practices as a sociotechnical system, and forms the basis for an ongoing mixed-methods study on the role of readability in the health information practices of adult emerging readers. This approach puts into question best practice guidelines for creating health information and asks what makes a useful health information document for adult emerging readers. The results of this research based on this conceptual framework will help to improve access to quality health information for members of communities that face greater health disparities.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Arazy, O., Kopak, R.: On the measurability of information quality. J. Am. Soc. Inf. Sci. Technol. 62(1), 89–99 (2011)
Baker, D.W., Gazmararian, J.A., Williams, M.V., Scott, T., Parker, R.M., Green, D., Ren, J., Peel, J.: Functional health literacy and the risk of hospital admission among medicare managed care enrollees. Am. J. Public Health 92(8), 1278–1283 (2002)
Berkman, N.D., Sheridan, S.L., Donahue, K.E., Halpern, D.J., Crotty, K.: Low health literacy and health outcomes: an updated systematic review. Ann. Intern. Med. 155(2), 97–107 (2011)
Chall, J.S., Dale, E.: Readability Revisited: The New Dale-Chall Readability Formula. Brookline Books, Brookline (1995)
Dollahite, J., Thompson, C., McNew, R.: Readability of printed sources of diet and health information. Patient Educ. Couns. 27(2), 123–134 (1996)
DuBay, W.H.: The Principles of Readability. Impact Information, Costa Mesa (2004)
Eysenbach, G., Kohler, C.: How do consumers search for and appraise health information on the world wide web? Qualitative study using focus groups, usability tests, and in-depth interviews. Br. Med. J. 324(7337), 573–577 (2002)
Federal Plain Language Guidelines. www.plainlanguage.gov/howto/guidelines/bigdoc/fullbigdoc.pdf. Accessed 18 Sept 2017
Feng, L., Elhadad, N., Huenerfauth, M.: Cognitively motivated features for readability assessment. In: Proceedings of the 12th Conference of the European Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics, pp. 229–237. Association for Computational Linguistics, Athens (2009)
Flesch, R.: A new readability yardstick. J. Appl. Psychol. 32(3), 221 (1948)
Giddens, A.: The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration. University of California Press, Berkeley (1984)
Health Literacy Online: A Guide for Simplifying the User Experience. https://health.gov/healthliteracyonline/. Accessed 18 Sept 2017
Hilligoss, B., Rieh, S.Y.: Developing a unifying framework of credibility assessment: construct, heuristics, and interaction in context. Inf. Process. Manag. 44(4), 1467–1484 (2008)
How to write Easy-to-Read Health Materials. https://medlineplus.gov/etr.html#assess. Accessed 18 Sept 2017
Howard, D.H., Gazmararian, J., Parker, R.M.: The impact of low health literacy on the medical costs of medicare managed care enrollees. Am. J. Med. 118(4), 371–377 (2005)
Huber, J.T., Shapiro, R.M., Gillaspy, M.L.: Top down versus bottom up: the social construction of the health literacy movement. Libr. Q. 82(4), 429–451 (2012)
Kim, W., Kreps, G.L., Shin, C.N.: The role of social support and social networks in health information–seeking behavior among Korean Americans: a qualitative study. Int. J. Equity Health 14(1), 40 (2015)
Kindig, D.A., Panzer, A.M., Nielsen-Bohlman, L. (eds.): Health Literacy: A Prescription to End Confusion. National Academies Press, Washington, DC (2004)
Klare, G.R.: Readability. Handb. Read. Res. 1, 681–744 (1984)
Koh, H.K., Berwick, D.M., Clancy, C.M., Baur, C., Brach, C., Harris, L.M., Zerhusen, E.G.: New federal policy initiatives to boost health literacy can help the nation move beyond the cycle of costly ‘crisis care’. Health Aff. (2012). https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2011.1169
Leonardi, P.M.: Theoretical foundations for the study of sociomateriality. Inf. Organ. 23(2), 59–76 (2013)
Marshall, L.A., Williams, D.: Health information: does quality count for the consumer? How consumers evaluate the quality of health information materials across a variety of media. J. Librariansh. Inf. Sci. 38(3), 141–156 (2006)
McLaughlin, G.H.: SMOG grading-a new readability formula. J. Read. 12(8), 639–646 (1969)
Redish, J.: Readability formulas have even more limitations than Klare discusses. ACM J. Comput. Doc. (JCD) 24(3), 132–137 (2000)
Savolainen, R.: Everyday life information seeking: approaching information seeking in the context of “way of life”. Libr. Inf. Sci. Res. 17(3), 259–294 (1995)
Schriver, K.A.: Readability formulas in the new millennium: what’s the use? ACM J. Comput. Doc. 24(3), 138–140 (2000)
Sørensen, K., Van den Broucke, S., Fullam, J., Doyle, G., Pelikan, J., Slonska, Z., Brand, H.: Health literacy and public health: a systematic review and integration of definitions and models. BMC Public Health 12(1), 1 (2012)
Stvilia, B., Gasser, L., Twidale, M.B., Smith, L.C.: A framework for information quality assessment. J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol. 58(12), 1720–1733 (2007)
Tuominen, K., Savolainen, R., Talja, S.: Information literacy as a sociotechnical practice. Libr. Q. 75(3), 329–345 (2005)
Walsh, T.M., Volsko, T.A.: Readability assessment of internet-based consumer health information. Respir. Care 53(10), 1310–1315 (2008)
Wiegand, W.A.: Out of sight out of mind: why don’t we have any schools of library and reading studies? J. Educ. Libr. Inf. Sci. 38(4), 314–326 (1997)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature
About this paper
Cite this paper
Morales, M., Wacholder, N. (2018). Conceptualizing the Role of Reading and Literacy in Health Information Practices. In: Chowdhury, G., McLeod, J., Gillet, V., Willett, P. (eds) Transforming Digital Worlds. iConference 2018. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10766. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78105-1_55
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78105-1_55
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-78104-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-78105-1
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)