Interventions for Low Health Literate Audiences

Far be it from me to promote my own work... But here I go, here's the abstract of an article just published in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication:

Given the costs associated with providing healthcare to low health literate audiences, effectively communicating information to low health literate individuals is an important issue. With the constantly increasing complexity of health information, though, even more health literate audiences can appreciate simpler health communication. This research investigated the potential for specially-tailored e-health interventions, designed to provide health information to low health literate audiences, to a broader and more health literate audience. Two websites were evaluated, the first with information about diabetes and the second focusing on child care. These interventions provided information through animated health providers, with supporting images and animations. Subjects approved of both websites’ designs, preferring the newer and more graphically appealing of the two. Respondents learned from both interventions, as measured by t-tests comparing pre- and post-tests of knowledge. Subjects did not exhibit significant preferences for animated health providers matching their own ethnicity, suggesting the importance of true cultural customization of content. Implications for health communication researchers and professionals discussed, including directions for future research.

For those interested in the full text of the article, it's online here.