This is the course blog for PH 663 - the theory-based, practical, action-packed Health Communication course for ace Health Promotion students in the Graduate School of Public Health at San Diego State University. Are we having fun or what!
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Week 7 - Health Literacy
KEY CONCEPTS -Health Literacy -Low Literacy Does Not Equal Unintelligent -Plain Language -Transcreation
It was really eye opening watching the videos on literarcy in todays class. It was incredible to hear first hand accounts of people who unknowingly endangered their lives and health because they weren't able to read warning labels or their prescription label properly. This really drove home a point made in the video; that low literacy stops people from taking action in self care, the care of others, action within the community, and at work. Imagine the consequences of someone not being able to read a warning sign properly within the work place and how that might affect other workers. I wouldn't blame the person who made the mistake, but rather the person who wrote the warning sign/label. Although I can read at an educated level, I know I wouldn't mind health and safety material to be written in plain language. I really identified with the people in both videos. Just because I could read at a higher level than them doesn't mean it makes it any easier when I have to read my insurance coverage booklet, or the lengthy information sheet that comes with prescriptions. This makes me wonder though if its in the best interest of insurance companies, like Medicare, to have patients not understand all the benefits they are entitled too. The less a client knows about their insurance coverage, the better it can be for the insurance company. Well, this is at least my hypothesis of the day.
After visiting the doctor today and watching the video on health literacy yesterday, I realized how people can easily endanger their lives by not understanding the doctors or their prescription labels. I found myself asking questions and paraphrasing what the doctor had said to make sure I knew how to take the medication. Because I was at health services on campus, I'm sure the doctors there assume the students they see are capable of reading the fine print on the prescription labels and can understand the medical jargon used by the health care providers. I was made aware of how intimidating a doctors visit could be for someone with a low level of literacy, as they would not have the skills to ask important questions if they aren't able to comprehend what the doctor communicates to them. After I left student health I read over the directions, warnings, and precautions of taking the medication, all of which was in fine print embedded in paragraphs of big words. I learned some important things about what not to take with the medicine, which was not described to me and would be hard to find for someone with a low level of literacy. Looking at my experience with a health communications perspective, I am now seeing where change needs to happen and who is responsible. The health care providers need to make sure patients comprehend the information given to them and printed materials should offer the information in easy to find bullet points. This brings up the point of 'transcreation' that rewrites the key concepts in easier language.
I agree with the other ladies. Health literacy is a problem that needs a solution. I had this conversation with a colleague of mine today. Her father recently passed away and she and her mother were having so much difficulty trying to understand all of the forms they had to fill out so her mother could receive Veteran's Affairs' Benefits. Things were so complex with unfamiliar terms that they went to a specialist to help them decipher the forms. I consider my colleague to be an intelligent person. But, it just proves the point that low literacy doesn't mean unintelligent. I was more convinced of this after watching the videos yesterday. It is frustrating to realize how much of problem health literacy is: I struggle with it at times and I can only imagine how others struggle. I think a picture is worth a thousand words and people should incorporate pictures into more products to get their message across. I think transcreation is a great idea and it is the direction we need to go if we want to see the current situation improve. Less is often more. And, I'm working on it :)
Health literacy is an important issue and I'm glad we covered it in class. I definitely could connect with the people shown in the video since my father also has a difficult time understanding many of the medical terms; English being his second language. I almost always accompany him to his doctor visits and would be so worried if I wasn't there with him since some of these doctors use medical terminology and speak in a very complex language. My father was prescribed Lipitor as his cholesterol medication and was not informed by his doctor not to drink grape fruit juice with this medication. Of course, this was written in fine prints in the back of his medication bottle which he, at his old age, could barely read and comprehend. As a result, he was taking Lipitor while he was drinking grapefruit juice which he believed would help even more in lowering his cholesterol. Then, he started having muscle aches which he found out later that was the result of the intake of the combination of Lipitor and grapefruit juice. This interaction is very deadly and my dad was lucky that I found out quickly. This could have been prevented if his doctor tried to take his time to simply explain this to my father in plain language knowing he doesn't speak English very well. Another alternative would be having pictures on labels to get their message across and I agree with Amanda on how a picture is worth a thousand words.
Tuesday's class reminded me of when I worked at San Francisco General Hospital. The patient population there was largely non-English speaking or at least with low English literacy. The signage there was all in English (and complicated English at that) so they had resorted to painting colored lines on the floor (similar to what Dania said in class). But over time, the lines had become worn down. And it reminded me of the yellow brick road. All of these clearly intelligent people who simply could not read the writing on the wall, standing, confused, at the end of the colored lines. You could feel the frustration. Back then, I started to feel pretty passionately that something had to be done about hospital navigation. Clearly, it's just one of the MANY ways that literacy impacts the health of low English literacy folks in this country. And something's got to be done!
I deal with low literacy consumer’s everyday I go to work. It makes me realize how much I take for granted in my ability to read and comprehend everyday materials I come into contact with. I enjoyed reading about Sareh and her father, this just goes to prove with low literacy does not equate to unintelligence. Take for example my GRE scores and SAT scores, just as our class mate said, I too scored really low, yet by know means do I consider myself unintelligent I do well in my class and having proven myself competent in whatever I put my mind too. Another perfect example is my brother, he too did horrible on test such as these and yet he is getting his PHD is geophysics, traveling to the North Artic, Venezuela, studying gravity and designing seismographs, and working on his dissertation with NASA knocking on his door and is on TV all the time. He is by far one of the most intelligent people I know, well spoken, and yet his test scores show otherwise. I enjoyed the readability website and will use this in the future. I had no idea that was out there, all I knew about was the readabily level you can run on your papers when using Word. Words program only goes up to 12th grade, so this will be more than beneficial especially when working on my thesis.
I worked for a year as at an after school literacy program with first graders but I had lost touch of how big of a problem literacy is in our country. I guess I take for granted that I am literate and was raised to question anything I don’t understand. But not having come from that back ground I can see how intimidating it would be to challenge what someone is saying if you don’t understand, especially a doctor. Like we were talking about in class, I even get confused at the doctor or reading medication labels. The difference is, I can read the words, I just don’t understand them therefore I feel more confident asking. Where as a person with low literacy may not even be able to read the words and would not have the confidence to ask someone to explain everything to them. This problem is not only in the health field, it affects every part of our culture. I remember while teaching literacy, the kids I worked with would have to do their homework at school because their parents were unable to help them with it at home, if a parent can’t help with first grade homework, do you think they are going to be able to read a job application, insurance forms, or a prescription? And I knew these parents, they were intelligent, they just had not grown up learning English, therefore could not read it. This again is a problem we need to take on as public health professionals, instead of stigmatizing these people further, it is our responsibility to create health communication messages that they can understand.
On another note, the readability website is so cool. I used it to test the readability of the eligibility form that is used for the Family PACT program and most of it is around 10-12 grade. So hypothetically, it should be ok to give to college students but that isn’t always the case. I am excited to see what we can do with the form to make it more readable for the students!
I was really interested by the 'In Plain Language' video. Oftentimes I find myself in a doctor's office thinking to myself, "I should know what this doctor is saying to me, I'm a grad student." But I smile and I nod, and I act concerned because it's my health, but I feel stupid sometimes and want to blurt out, "Dude... what does that even mean?!" If I feel this way, and it has happened numerous times while filling out health insurance forms, student loan information, taxes, etc., how does it make others feel? Probably stupid, just like me. So, as public health communicators, we have a lot of work to do. Not only do we have to make sure that we are designing the right campaign for the intended audience, we have to convey our message in a language that is understandable by all. Otherwise, we will spend a lot of time and effort (not to mention money) on a health message that is just ignored or misunderstood by the people we are trying to reach.
1040, 1040A, PS404 Insurance Enrollment Form, FAFSA... I have never understood why so many forms to be filled out by the general public to take care of their basic needs, like applying for health insurance or filing taxes, are so difficult to understand! Why would using all that jargon and complicated language EVER be acceptable for communications so commonplace and necessary?!? Every government agency and every business, especially health organizations, should be required to use the readability website that we learned about in class! In my future communications, especially those for the general public, I will definitely keep the readability website in mind to check my work for unnecessary wordiness!
ps My SMOG for this BLOG was 15.96! I love that website!
I really liked the video on health literacy, I really had never thought about it. Being a student I face problems all the time, even with getting my own insurance in a different state from my parents was confusing on what I would be treated for and what services I could get, and this is more my field than the average person. I also did not consider people actually being illiterate and what effects that may have in their everyday health, like the woman mixing ammonia and bleach. I was so interested by this that I looked up the effects (http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/classic/A795611). I never thought about how that would effect taking the right amount of asprin or directions on not mixing certain medications with food (like grapefruit) which can have deadly effects. Interesting stuff.
When I googled health literacy I found an interesting definition by Healthy People, a government web site. Health literacy is defined in Healthy People 2010 as: "The degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions". This definition place the responsibility of understanding and processing health information on the consumer rather than those who provide the information. As we saw in the videos in class this method does not work because everyone has a different capacity level of reading and comprehension. Using this definition health care workers and administrators are neglecting those individuals who may be illiterate, low comprehension level, or English is second language for them. How are these group of individual suppose to make appropriate health decisions if they can not understand the forms, the directions, medication, and other materials given to them by their health care providers. Now a day, when individuals see a doctor they are in such a rush that they really don’t take the time to communicate to effectively what they are prescribing and people may be intimidated to ask question, especially if they are already confused about what the doctor said. Health literacy is an important part of health communication, but is being left up to the consumer to figure. Using plane language in health documents is a simple solution but under utilized.
Talking about health literacy in this week's class made me remember some of the experiences I had as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Paraguay. I worked with several women's groups there and ended up designing a health course for the women I worked with, so that they could learn more about health topics that they identified as important to them. One challenge to teaching this group of mostly middle-aged women was that the majority of them were not literate, in either of the languages spoken in Paraguay. There were definitely ways to work through this challenge...I had to be creative with how I chose to get the health information across to them without using written words...instead lots of visuals including posters, pictures, etc. Although this experience was not in a U.S. setting, reflecting on it made me remember that there are other ways to communicate health messages. It may not be the cheapest and/or easiest way (in the educator's mind), but as this video pointed out, health literacy is an issue in the U.S. and is an important issue that needs attention. While it needs our attention as health promoters, to have an ever more wide spread influence we also need to have buy in from the policy makers who create all the confusing forms and documentation that alienates those who cannot read them.
When we think of low literacy, we think that "They do not know how to speak, read, or understand English." Therefore, they are not intelligent and should be treated differently. Why is it that the English language is the language that everyone should know? There are thousands of languages out there, but yet we limit ourselves to mostly English? Being able to read, write, and understand other languages is an open door to other opportunities and worlds. They should focus more on teaching other languages during elementary, middle, and high school. Everyone that comes to live in the USA has to "get used" to the American way of life. Why doesn't America accomodate others of different cultures, thus, creating labels and directions easier for those that do not speak english. This would reduce people endangering themsleves from taking the wrong medicines and other things similar. Limiting ourselves to one language limits our outlook on the world.
i really enjoyed the video on health literacy. It reminded me of the time when I was a kid and didn't read or speak English and because we lived close to the border and medicine was sometimes cheaper in the US my mom would buy them here. I remember reading "translated" labels that were so confusing. I specifically remember a bottle of aspirin that seemed to say not to take while being asleep?? This seemed funny to me. But it shed light on the faults of translating and the possible problems that more dangerous medicine could have on an individual if labels were written in this manner. This topic also hit home on a campaign that i was part of inside of juvenile hall in San Francisco, were we found the need to transcribe all materials related to the health of youth there into six different languages. Materials had been only in English and bad Spanish since their doors opened more than 20 years ago! Incredible
I can really relate to the health literacy video. In my previous job, I did home visits to interview teens that were interested in having a mentor. Many of the teens I visited were Hispanic and their parents at times had very limited English. As I got to know these families and they began asking me for help to translate paperwork, bills, filling out housing applications, school forms that although were in spanish, were too complicated and hard to digest. A lot of the time, I was not sure what some of the forms were asking for, the language was complicated and the terminology was not explained clearly. I know its important to cover all your basis when it comes to liability issues,getting consent forms, signing waivers, but at what cost? who is it really for? should there be the complicated paperwork and then the cliff note version attached for the reader? I think we need to be creative on how we present information and keep reminding ourselves that we have an obligation to inform the public and make sure our message is not only thorough, but clearly understood.
Literacy? You always roll with the 8th grade reading ability as the measure. Even that as the video showed could be entirely too much for the completely illiterate or for that matter the nonenglish speaker. All presented well in class. Is there not a component of literacy question that encompasses culture as well. Lets same I present to a group of Mong from Cambodia. The language is such that an "8th" grade Mong may understand (dont know how we measure that) but my presentation does not have the cultural competency to facilitate any interest from the audience. I might be mixing apples and oranges but I feel the two are not independent at all. I need to encompass all the info from my formative research in oder to meet the interest, literacy and cultural needs of the audience in order to effect change.
This literacy problem reminds me of a story about someone’s grandfather that was unable to open his bottle of medication during some life-threatening incident and died. The childproof container of medication had simple instructions to “push down and turn to open”. This individual had a limited grade school education and only spoke Spanish. I recall this story being told to a group of impoverished Latino youth at a weeklong summer camp—quite a story to motivate kids to stay in school.
19 comments:
It was really eye opening watching the videos on literarcy in todays class. It was incredible to hear first hand accounts of people who unknowingly endangered their lives and health because they weren't able to read warning labels or their prescription label properly. This really drove home a point made in the video; that low literacy stops people from taking action in self care, the care of others, action within the community, and at work. Imagine the consequences of someone not being able to read a warning sign properly within the work place and how that might affect other workers. I wouldn't blame the person who made the mistake, but rather the person who wrote the warning sign/label. Although I can read at an educated level, I know I wouldn't mind health and safety material to be written in plain language. I really identified with the people in both videos. Just because I could read at a higher level than them doesn't mean it makes it any easier when I have to read my insurance coverage booklet, or the lengthy information sheet that comes with prescriptions. This makes me wonder though if its in the best interest of insurance companies, like Medicare, to have patients not understand all the benefits they are entitled too. The less a client knows about their insurance coverage, the better it can be for the insurance company. Well, this is at least my hypothesis of the day.
After visiting the doctor today and watching the video on health literacy yesterday, I realized how people can easily endanger their lives by not understanding the doctors or their prescription labels. I found myself asking questions and paraphrasing what the doctor had said to make sure I knew how to take the medication. Because I was at health services on campus, I'm sure the doctors there assume the students they see are capable of reading the fine print on the prescription labels and can understand the medical jargon used by the health care providers. I was made aware of how intimidating a doctors visit could be for someone with a low level of literacy, as they would not have the skills to ask important questions if they aren't able to comprehend what the doctor communicates to them. After I left student health I read over the directions, warnings, and precautions of taking the medication, all of which was in fine print embedded in paragraphs of big words. I learned some important things about what not to take with the medicine, which was not described to me and would be hard to find for someone with a low level of literacy. Looking at my experience with a health communications perspective, I am now seeing where change needs to happen and who is responsible. The health care providers need to make sure patients comprehend the information given to them and printed materials should offer the information in easy to find bullet points. This brings up the point of 'transcreation' that rewrites the key concepts in easier language.
I agree with the other ladies. Health literacy is a problem that needs a solution. I had this conversation with a colleague of mine today. Her father recently passed away and she and her mother were having so much difficulty trying to understand all of the forms they had to fill out so her mother could receive Veteran's Affairs' Benefits. Things were so complex with unfamiliar terms that they went to a specialist to help them decipher the forms. I consider my colleague to be an intelligent person. But, it just proves the point that low literacy doesn't mean unintelligent. I was more convinced of this after watching the videos yesterday. It is frustrating to realize how much of problem health literacy is: I struggle with it at times and I can only imagine how others struggle. I think a picture is worth a thousand words and people should incorporate pictures into more products to get their message across. I think transcreation is a great idea and it is the direction we need to go if we want to see the current situation improve. Less is often more. And, I'm working on it :)
It seems I missed a good class and can't make qualified comments.
Health literacy is an important issue and I'm glad we covered it in class. I definitely could connect with the people shown in the video since my father also has a difficult time understanding many of the medical terms; English being his second language. I almost always accompany him to his doctor visits and would be so worried if I wasn't there with him since some of these doctors use medical terminology and speak in a very complex language. My father was prescribed Lipitor as his cholesterol medication and was not informed by his doctor not to drink grape fruit juice with this medication. Of course, this was written in fine prints in the back of his medication bottle which he, at his old age, could barely read and comprehend. As a result, he was taking Lipitor while he was drinking grapefruit juice which he believed would help even more in lowering his cholesterol. Then, he started having muscle aches which he found out later that was the result of the intake of the combination of Lipitor and grapefruit juice. This interaction is very deadly and my dad was lucky that I found out quickly. This could have been prevented if his doctor tried to take his time to simply explain this to my father in plain language knowing he doesn't speak English very well. Another alternative would be having pictures on labels to get their message across and I agree with Amanda on how a picture is worth a thousand words.
Tuesday's class reminded me of when I worked at San Francisco General Hospital. The patient population there was largely non-English speaking or at least with low English literacy. The signage there was all in English (and complicated English at that) so they had resorted to painting colored lines on the floor (similar to what Dania said in class). But over time, the lines had become worn down. And it reminded me of the yellow brick road. All of these clearly intelligent people who simply could not read the writing on the wall, standing, confused, at the end of the colored lines. You could feel the frustration. Back then, I started to feel pretty passionately that something had to be done about hospital navigation. Clearly, it's just one of the MANY ways that literacy impacts the health of low English literacy folks in this country. And something's got to be done!
I deal with low literacy consumer’s everyday I go to work. It makes me realize how much I take for granted in my ability to read and comprehend everyday materials I come into contact with. I enjoyed reading about Sareh and her father, this just goes to prove with low literacy does not equate to unintelligence. Take for example my GRE scores and SAT scores, just as our class mate said, I too scored really low, yet by know means do I consider myself unintelligent I do well in my class and having proven myself competent in whatever I put my mind too. Another perfect example is my brother, he too did horrible on test such as these and yet he is getting his PHD is geophysics, traveling to the North Artic, Venezuela, studying gravity and designing seismographs, and working on his dissertation with NASA knocking on his door and is on TV all the time. He is by far one of the most intelligent people I know, well spoken, and yet his test scores show otherwise.
I enjoyed the readability website and will use this in the future. I had no idea that was out there, all I knew about was the readabily level you can run on your papers when using Word. Words program only goes up to 12th grade, so this will be more than beneficial especially when working on my thesis.
I worked for a year as at an after school literacy program with first graders but I had lost touch of how big of a problem literacy is in our country. I guess I take for granted that I am literate and was raised to question anything I don’t understand. But not having come from that back ground I can see how intimidating it would be to challenge what someone is saying if you don’t understand, especially a doctor. Like we were talking about in class, I even get confused at the doctor or reading medication labels. The difference is, I can read the words, I just don’t understand them therefore I feel more confident asking. Where as a person with low literacy may not even be able to read the words and would not have the confidence to ask someone to explain everything to them. This problem is not only in the health field, it affects every part of our culture. I remember while teaching literacy, the kids I worked with would have to do their homework at school because their parents were unable to help them with it at home, if a parent can’t help with first grade homework, do you think they are going to be able to read a job application, insurance forms, or a prescription? And I knew these parents, they were intelligent, they just had not grown up learning English, therefore could not read it. This again is a problem we need to take on as public health professionals, instead of stigmatizing these people further, it is our responsibility to create health communication messages that they can understand.
On another note, the readability website is so cool. I used it to test the readability of the eligibility form that is used for the Family PACT program and most of it is around 10-12 grade. So hypothetically, it should be ok to give to college students but that isn’t always the case. I am excited to see what we can do with the form to make it more readable for the students!
I was really interested by the 'In Plain Language' video. Oftentimes I find myself in a doctor's office thinking to myself, "I should know what this doctor is saying to me, I'm a grad student." But I smile and I nod, and I act concerned because it's my health, but I feel stupid sometimes and want to blurt out, "Dude... what does that even mean?!" If I feel this way, and it has happened numerous times while filling out health insurance forms, student loan information, taxes, etc., how does it make others feel? Probably stupid, just like me. So, as public health communicators, we have a lot of work to do. Not only do we have to make sure that we are designing the right campaign for the intended audience, we have to convey our message in a language that is understandable by all. Otherwise, we will spend a lot of time and effort (not to mention money) on a health message that is just ignored or misunderstood by the people we are trying to reach.
1040, 1040A, PS404 Insurance Enrollment Form, FAFSA... I have never understood why so many forms to be filled out by the general public to take care of their basic needs, like applying for health insurance or filing taxes, are so difficult to understand! Why would using all that jargon and complicated language EVER be acceptable for communications so commonplace and necessary?!? Every government agency and every business, especially health organizations, should be required to use the readability website that we learned about in class! In my future communications, especially those for the general public, I will definitely keep the readability website in mind to check my work for unnecessary wordiness!
ps My SMOG for this BLOG was 15.96! I love that website!
I really liked the video on health literacy, I really had never thought about it. Being a student I face problems all the time, even with getting my own insurance in a different state from my parents was confusing on what I would be treated for and what services I could get, and this is more my field than the average person. I also did not consider people actually being illiterate and what effects that may have in their everyday health, like the woman mixing ammonia and bleach. I was so interested by this that I looked up the effects (http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/classic/A795611). I never thought about how that would effect taking the right amount of asprin or directions on not mixing certain medications with food (like grapefruit) which can have deadly effects. Interesting stuff.
When I googled health literacy I found an interesting definition by Healthy People, a government web site. Health literacy is defined in Healthy People 2010 as: "The degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions". This definition place the responsibility of understanding and processing health information on the consumer rather than those who provide the information. As we saw in the videos in class this method does not work because everyone has a different capacity level of reading and comprehension. Using this definition health care workers and administrators are neglecting those individuals who may be illiterate, low comprehension level, or English is second language for them. How are these group of individual suppose to make appropriate health decisions if they can not understand the forms, the directions, medication, and other materials given to them by their health care providers. Now a day, when individuals see a doctor they are in such a rush that they really don’t take the time to communicate to effectively what they are prescribing and people may be intimidated to ask question, especially if they are already confused about what the doctor said. Health literacy is an important part of health communication, but is being left up to the consumer to figure. Using plane language in health documents is a simple solution but under utilized.
Talking about health literacy in this week's class made me remember some of the experiences I had as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Paraguay. I worked with several women's groups there and ended up designing a health course for the women I worked with, so that they could learn more about health topics that they identified as important to them. One challenge to teaching this group of mostly middle-aged women was that the majority of them were not literate, in either of the languages spoken in Paraguay. There were definitely ways to work through this challenge...I had to be creative with how I chose to get the health information across to them without using written words...instead lots of visuals including posters, pictures, etc. Although this experience was not in a U.S. setting, reflecting on it made me remember that there are other ways to communicate health messages. It may not be the cheapest and/or easiest way (in the educator's mind), but as this video pointed out, health literacy is an issue in the U.S. and is an important issue that needs attention. While it needs our attention as health promoters, to have an ever more wide spread influence we also need to have buy in from the policy makers who create all the confusing forms and documentation that alienates those who cannot read them.
When we think of low literacy, we think that "They do not know how to speak, read, or understand English." Therefore, they are not intelligent and should be treated differently. Why is it that the English language is the language that everyone should know? There are thousands of languages out there, but yet we limit ourselves to mostly English? Being able to read, write, and understand other languages is an open door to other opportunities and worlds. They should focus more on teaching other languages during elementary, middle, and high school. Everyone that comes to live in the USA has to "get used" to the American way of life. Why doesn't America accomodate others of different cultures, thus, creating labels and directions easier for those that do not speak english. This would reduce people endangering themsleves from taking the wrong medicines and other things similar. Limiting ourselves to one language limits our outlook on the world.
i really enjoyed the video on health literacy. It reminded me of the time when I was a kid and didn't read or speak English and because we lived close to the border and medicine was sometimes cheaper in the US my mom would buy them here. I remember reading "translated" labels that were so confusing. I specifically remember a bottle of aspirin that seemed to say not to take while being asleep?? This seemed funny to me. But it shed light on the faults of translating and the possible problems that more dangerous medicine could have on an individual if labels were written in this manner. This topic also hit home on a campaign that i was part of inside of juvenile hall in San Francisco, were we found the need to transcribe all materials related to the health of youth there into six different languages. Materials had been only in English and bad Spanish since their doors opened more than 20 years ago! Incredible
I can really relate to the health literacy video. In my previous job, I did home visits to interview teens that were interested in having a mentor. Many of the teens I visited were Hispanic and their parents at times had very limited English. As I got to know these families and they began asking me for help to translate paperwork, bills, filling out housing applications, school forms that although were in spanish, were too complicated and hard to digest.
A lot of the time, I was not sure what some of the forms were asking for, the language was complicated and the terminology was not explained clearly. I know its important to cover all your basis when it comes to liability issues,getting consent forms, signing waivers, but at what cost? who is it really for? should there be the complicated paperwork and then the cliff note version attached for the reader?
I think we need to be creative on how we present information and keep reminding ourselves that we have an obligation to inform the public and make sure our message is not only thorough, but clearly understood.
Literacy? You always roll with the 8th grade reading ability as the measure. Even that as the video showed could be entirely too much for the completely illiterate or for that matter the nonenglish speaker. All presented well in class. Is there not a component of literacy question that encompasses culture as well. Lets same I present to a group of Mong from Cambodia. The language is such that an "8th" grade Mong may understand (dont know how we measure that) but my presentation does not have the cultural competency to facilitate any interest from the audience. I might be mixing apples and oranges but I feel the two are not independent at all. I need to encompass all the info from my formative research in oder to meet the interest, literacy and cultural needs of the audience in order to effect change.
This literacy problem reminds me of a story about someone’s grandfather that was unable to open his bottle of medication during some life-threatening incident and died. The childproof container of medication had simple instructions to “push down and turn to open”. This individual had a limited grade school education and only spoke Spanish. I recall this story being told to a group of impoverished Latino youth at a weeklong summer camp—quite a story to motivate kids to stay in school.
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