HLN #10: Creating Health Literacy Materials for People Living With Disabilities
A Multimedia Approach Leaves No One Behind
Multilingual and multimedia approaches for communicating health, altogether speak a better language for inclusion. This week’s edition is inspired by a reader’s concerns, on why people living with disabilities should not be left behind when creating health literacy materials. Based on his feedback to me via WhatsApp, I hark back to, and share another experience that gave birth to this edition.
In last week’s edition, I shared why clear communication enables ease of translation in settings with language diversity. Yet a multilingual approach is not enough. Multimedia allows you to double down, to reach and, empower even more people, especially those living with disabilities, beyond their shared languages.
Seventeen months ago, I hosted and produced a podcast conversation on health news literacy. As usual, when promoting any content, you take key snippets from the guest speaker on social media. Before producing that episode, I had always shared text captions and quotes from the guest, alongside the link to the full episode as the call to action. However, the conversation with ‘Buchi was so enlightening that I decided to convert key snippets of it into an audiovisual clip and share on all of my social platforms. I also included captions in English in the file. I would check back later to find this feedback on my Facebook stories, from a consultant pediatrician who has a hearing challenge.
In matters of health security, as a nation, we are only as strong as our weakest links. An all-inclusive communication approach for addressing health issues involves meeting the prioritized audience where they are. Disproportionately affected people, especially those living with disabilities, need health literacy materials shared in various formats to address their unique needs.
Thinking of a podcast? Great! Podcasts, like audio files and radio shows, are ideal for people who are blind or have sight challenges. It makes no sense to someone who is deaf. To make this all-inclusive, a multimedia approach will include captions and transcripts for someone with a hearing challenge to access the information, without losing its meaning in the transcription or translation process.
Similarly, a television show works for all who have a sense of sight and hearing. This means that, where resources are available, solving for those who have either sight or a hearing issue, will involve writing for the ear (radio drama or podcasts) or using a sign-language expert (on TV) respectively.
Physical campaign activities involving people living with disabilities, such as awareness walks, dance, painting, presentations, speeches, media activities, must be convenient, non-invasive, and non-harmful.
Now, down to social media for health campaigns: you can have one scripted content in various formats: text, images, podcasts, videos as it suits the various platforms and users.
So, whether you choose to write or create for the ear or eye, do not forget to clearly define the target audience and do a pretest before publishing.
Here’s an idea: One social media tool I have found to work for people who are blind is ClubHouse. I recently stumbled on a community, where people volunteer to read to the blind. This could also work for anyone leveraging the platform for a health literacy campaign.
What other multimedia approaches can we use to engage with people living with other kinds of disabilities not mentioned here?
Two Resources I Found This Week:
Health Equity Guiding Principles for Inclusive Communication (link)
CDC Clear Communication Index: A Tool for Developing and Assessing CDC Public Communication Products User Guide (link)
Upcoming public health events in November
Nov 17: COPD Day
Nov 17: World Prematurity Day
Nov 17: World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims
Nov 19: World Toilet Day
Nov 19: International Men's Day
Nov 20: International Survivors of Suicide Loss Day
Nov 25: National Family Health History Day
Download the calendar of 2021 health events here.
Don’t forget to share this edition with a colleague. Got questions or comments? Use the reply button to share them with me, or send a mail to healthliteracynotepad@gmail.com.
See you, 24/11.
Best,
Chidindu Mmadu-Okoli
Health Literacy Notepad