According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), nearly 9 out of 10 adults struggle to follow routine medical advice — and, according to Laura Landro in her piece in the Wall Street Journal, it’s largely to do with the fact that this advice is “often incomprehensible to average people.”
“Taking Medical Jargon Out of Doctor Visits”
One study estimates that the “costs to the health-care system of low health literacy, such as patients not taking their medications or seeking appropriate treatment, amount to as much as $238 billion a year.”
Hard to understand medical language, it seems, may actually be the cause of poor health outcomes and billions of dollars in wasteful spending. As such, it is an obvious target for the improvement of the health care system in general. The Health Literacy Action Plan is a federal program which aims to encourage medical communicators, whether plans or providers, to simplify their language for general consumption.
Her article refers to certain words such as “petechiae,” meaning skin rash, or “hyperlipidemia,” meaning high level of fats in the blood, which suggest the way in which one might restate medical terms in plain English (in this case) to more effectively describe an individual’s medical state.
Taking this into consideration, it seems a helpful exercise when writing about healthcare for the lay audience, perhaps the mainstream media. For even the most sophisticated journalist, an explanation in plain English will limit the number of misunderstandings that find their way into articles. If you have a background in the material, complex verbiage may actually make sense; but those who are hearing words for the first time may struggle. The goal, then, is to simplify. You will of course have those who just miss the information and are happy to correct a mistake, but clear explanations will certainly limit the number of times this happens.
Any good story can be told simply and elegantly — and everyone should be able to understand it.
This is very true. There is no need for jargon when simple facts get the point across as well.