Medical Writing Plain Language and Readability How CDC is promoting a clear communication culture

Volume 24, Issue 1 - Plain Language and Readability

How CDC is promoting a clear communication culture

Abstract

Both the federal Plain Writing Act and the mission of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to protect and promote people's health require CDC to communicate clearly so that people can understand and act on the important health information it provides. Decades of research shows that health information and services are often unfamiliar, complicated, and technical, even for people with many years of formal education. Although individual skills are important, the actions of health professionals in communicating health information are influential as well. In response to both the challenges faced by those who need health information and the opportunities for improvement among those who provide health information, CDC is taking steps to promote a clear communication culture to make its health information and services accessible and understandable by the different audiences it serves.

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References

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Articles

Plain language and readability
President's Message
Time to make it shorter: Plain English in our context
How CDC is promoting a clear communication culture
Making leaflets clearer for patients
Online plain English and readability resources
Get real: Avoiding corporate gobbledygook
Transferring regulation into practice: The challenges of the new layperson summary of clinical trial results
Profile: An interview with Art Gertel on the Budapest Working Group
News from the EMA
The Webscout
In the Bookstores
English Grammar and Style Revising medical writing Reasons not rules: Backtracking, pronoun-induced Part 2 – Single syntactic unit revision
Regulatory Writing Briefing documents: A case apart
Medical Communications
Lingua Franca and Beyond
Out on Our Own

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