| Year: 2006 | 
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| LHNCBC-2006-066 |
| Assessing Consumer Health Vocabulary Familiarity: An Exploratory Study |
| Keselman A, Tse T, Crowell J, Browne A, Ngo L, Zeng Q |
| Mednet 2006 |
| Background: Accurate assessment of the difficulty of consumer health texts is a prerequisite for improving readability. General-purpose readability formulas based primarily on word length are not well suited for the health domain, where short technical terms may be unfamiliar. We previously developed a regression model for predicting 'average familiarity' with consumer health vocabulary (CHV) terms. Objective: The primary goal was to evaluate the predictive ability of the CHV term familiarity model among actual consumers. Secondary goals were to explore the joint effect of demographic factors and familiarity and 2) surface level familiarity (ie, recognition) and an understanding of the underlying meaning (ie, conceptualization). Methods: Survey instruments for assessing surface level familiarity (45 items) and conceptual familiarity (15 items) were developed. All participants also completed a demographic survey and a standardized health literacy assessment, S-TOFHLA. Results: Based on surveys completed by 52 consumers, linear regression suggests that predicted CHV term familiarity is statistically significantly correlated with participant scores on both the surface-level and conceptual familiarity surveys. Health literacy was a statistically significant predictor of surface-level familiarity scores, and a marginally significant predictor of concept familiarity scores (P = 0.06). Educational level was not a significant predictor of either. Participant scores indicated that conceptualization lagged behind recognition, especially for terms predicted as 'likely to be familiar' (P = .006). Conclusions: This exploratory study suggests that the CHV term familiarity model is predictive of consumer recognition and understanding of terms in the health domain. |
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