Many of us speak plain language every day, but we know plain language isn’t often the everyday language of government, business, law and healthcare.  The Plain Writing Act of 2010 requires federal executive branch agencies to use plain language communication with the public. How can large, complex organizations like government agencies make plain language everyday practice?

One way is through the power of communication. Although agencies must tell their staff about the law’s requirements, we all know how easy it is for broadcast emails, memos and other notices to get lost in the workday flow of information. To get employees’ attention, the CDC Office of Communication created 4 materials – a checklist and 3 messages – to remind staff of key plain language techniques.

The plain language checklist is based on the training slides from PLAIN, the network of federal plain language trainers. The 3 messages focus on specific issues in our public communication. We encourage employees to eliminate jargon and unnecessary details and highlight main messages. These materials are free and available for anyone to use.   

Organizational practices won’t change until the people inside the organizations change. Communicating expectations and specific action steps should be part of every organization’s plain language strategy. Please share your stories of how you’ve created a plain language culture in your organization. And please let us know if our materials helped you.

This week, Dagny Olivares from CDC’s Emergency Communication team blogs about plain language and public health emergencies.

September is National Preparedness Month. Across the country, it’s a time to take stock of how prepared we are to withstand and respond to emergency situations that affect us, our families, and our communities. At CDC, we make sure that we are prepared to protect the nation’s health from whatever threatens it, be that natural disaster, disease outbreak, or emerging hazard. To do that, we are working to ensure that plain language is a part of our emergency communication planning. Steps we are taking include

• Training staff to understand and use the principles of plain language when developing and reviewing emergency communication  materials;
• Prioritizing plain language along with such message characteristics as accuracy, timeliness, and consistency; and 
• Working with subject matter experts to review our existing emergency materials so that we can make them more understandable and accessible.

The updated  CDC 2012 edition of the Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication (CERC) manual states, “Technical language and jargon are barriers to successful communication with the public. In low-trust, high-concern situations, empathy and caring carry more weight than numbers and technical facts.” Public health professionals must make plain language a core tenet of their emergency and risk communication strategies because people need to be able to understand and act upon health information quickly in times of stress and uncertainty.

What are you doing in your organizations to make plain language a part of your preparedness planning? What challenges are you facing in undertaking that mission? We’d love to hear about your experiences, tips, and lessons learned.

The main message of this week’s post is that every health material needs a clear, main message.

The power of a main message is that your readers or listeners can almost immediately say, I know what this is about. When you state your main message clearly AND put it at the beginning, you help your readers or listeners know what is most important. 

Perhaps you think this point is obvious. Of course every health material has a main message, you say.

Let’s put this idea to the test with a main message challenge: Go to any health web site, randomly select a web page, download a brochure or report, or listen to a podcast or video on the site. Try and find the main message in the first paragraph, first set of key points, or first few sentences of the audio or video recording.  Can you easily and clearly state the key point this organization or person is trying to communicate to you?

Once you’ve taken the challenge, send in your results, and we’ll post them in the comments section.  Let’s do our part to improve health messages!

How many of you work in organizations that have plain language policies? If you work for a federal executive branch agency, the Plain Writing Act of 2010 requires you to use plain language in public communication.  The law says that federal agencies must train their staff in plain language and report annually on plain language practices and products.

You can find information on CDC’s plain language practices and read the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ first annual report on plain language.  At CDC, we train staff who create and clear public communication products in plain language. You can comment on the agency’s use of plain language through our toll-free public information number, 1-800-CDC-INFO. 

The Plain Writing Act positions federal agencies to serve as leaders and role models for plain language. Last week, I wrote about the Ten Attributes of Health Literate Health Care Organizations. Several attributes rely on plain language as a technique for clear communication. The large-scale training and monitoring processes that federal agencies are putting in place may help other organizations see how they can do something similar.

Plain language will not solve all the miscommunication that occurs in health. But, plain language policies bring attention to the issue and help clear away the verbal clutter that confuses, distracts and bogs down health communication. Plain language policies can be important catalysts for organizational change.

Please post your comments about plain language policies in your organization. If you have plain language policies, are they working? What are your successes and ongoing obstacles? If you don’t have a policy, what do you need to help create a policy?