The readability of online health infographics: a comparison between CDC and WHO (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Effective communication of health information involves clear messaging to ensure that readers comprehend and can easily apply behavioral recommendations. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the readability and understandability of online health infographics from the CDC and WHO to determine whether these infographics are written to the recommended reading levels. OBJECTIVE Online health infographics from graphic page on the CDC website (51 infographics) and WHO website (75 infographics) were included in the research. We conducted 6 readability tests which 3 tests focused on textual features and 3 tests focused on cognitive factors to ensure a comprehensive representation. METHODS We used the traditional readability formulas like Flesch Reading Ease, Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level and The SMOG Index which focused on textual features and formulas considered cognitive factors like ATOS, New Dale-Chall and Coh-Metrix to test the infographics readability. We compared the readability of online health infographics with general guidelines and the differences between the CDC and WHO. RESULTS We found that most online health infographics from the CDC and WHO exceed the general guideline. Specifically, online health infographics in WHO have better performance on readability formulars that focus on textural features and cognitive factors compared with CDC. CONCLUSIONS Both the CDC and WHO which provide health information to the public should be mindful of the textural features and cognitive factors of the online health infographics to improve the readability. CLINICALTRIAL No clinical trials.