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Patient Education & Health Literacy: Plain and Clear Writing

Patient Education & Health Literacy resources

Writing for patient education

Before-and-After examples (plainlanguage.gov)
Checklist for Plain Language from plainlanguage.gov
Checklist for Plain Language on the Web
Design Easy-to-Read Material
Guidelines for Creating Materials Harvard School of Public Health
Guidelines for Re-Writing Materials Harvard School of Public Health
Health Communications: Improving Readability by Design
How to write easy-to-read health materials from MedlinePlus.gov
Icon Array: make risk understandable
In Plain Words: Creating Easy-To-Read Handouts Ohio State University
Patient Education - Document Design - Purdue OWL
Patient Education - Organization and Style - Purdue OWL
Patient Education Materials - Purdue OWL
Plain English at a Glance plainlanguage.gov
Plainlanguage.gov
Planning Easy-to-Read Materials
Simply Put: a guide for creating easy-to-understand materials (CDC)
Toolkit for Making Written Material Clear and Effective from CMS.gov
Writing Easy-to-Read Materials
Writing Tips What do we mean by "active voice" or compound words?

Vocabulary & Synonyms

Everyday Words for Public Health Communication
Medical Terms in Lay Language (University of Iowa) Alternative Lay Language for Medical Terms in Consent Forms
Plain Language Thesaurus for Health Communication
University of Michigan Plain Language Dictionary

Checking for Reading Level & Readability

Guidelines for Assessing Materials Harvard School of Public Health
Guidelines for Easy-to-Read Materials
The Health Literacy Style Manual
The Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool (PEMAT) and User’s Guide An Instrument To Assess the Understandability and Actionability of Print and Audiovisual Patient Education Materials
A Plain-Language Checklist for Reviewing Your Document
Readability Test Tool Online tool to check your writing, plus descriptions of the tests being run and what they mean.