‘Simple Selfies’ Draw Attention to Health Literacy
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Oct. 28, 2014 | Want to take a “simple selfie?” This question was trending at the UAMS Center for Health Literacy’s open house as the center took to social media in an effort to make health information simple.
Open house guests marked out words on Oct. 22 like “incentivize” and “ambulate” on pieces of paper as part of the center’s Plain Language Pledge. Guests then took a selfie with the #plainpledge and posted it to the center’s Twitter and Facebook pages.
One pledger, Beverly Seaberg, quality coordinator in the UAMS Quality Management Department, believes that speaking plain language to patients is vital.
“Health literacy is important because we are relaying information that we want our patients and families to comprehend and use to help manage their illness,” Seaberg said. “We want them to be able to ask questions at the time of their visit, and clarify any misunderstandings, so they can transition safely to home when they leave the doctor’s office.”
Kristie Hadden, Ph.D., director of the UAMS Center for Health Literacy, said the goal of the pledge was to raise awareness about the importance for health care professionals to use plain language.
“Speaking plain language means to give information that people can understand and that they can act on — it’s understandable and actionable,” she said. “We hoped to make health information easier to understand one word at a time with the pledge.”
To highlight the need to use simple language and Health Literacy Month, the center engaged guests in games and gave away seven prizes, including a $100 gift card grand prize. Jimmy Parks, of Little Rock, was chosen as the “simple selfie” MVP for posting the most simple selfies.
Hadden said the pledge and the open house were a success with more than 62 guests and 130 pledges made, including the pledges made throughout October.
The pledge received exposure in several other states and countries including France, Ecuador, South Korea and England, helping to further the center’s mission to improve health literacy nationally and internationally.
“In terms of health literacy, we hope that people around the country, health professionals and researchers will want to partner with us here at UAMS because we are unique, because we are an academic institution and we provide outreach and training services,” Hadden said.
The Center for Health Literacy’s mission is to improve individual, provider, systems and community health literacy at local, state and national levels to improve health outcomes and population health. Its services include plain language services; health literacy best practices for providers, organizations and systems; and empirical and theoretical evidence-based research on health literacy.
The center’s plain language program teaches future and current health professionals the skills needed to assess existing written materials and edit them to reduce the literacy demands on patients. The program also teaches students how to create plain language materials for patients and the public.