Sydney Health Literacy Lab, School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine & Health, University of Sydney, NSW, Australia; Menzies Centre for Health Policy and Economics, Faculty of Medicine & Health, University of Sydney, NSW, Australia.
Sydney Health Literacy Lab, School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine & Health, University of Sydney, NSW, Australia.
Vaccine. 2024 Oct 24;42(24):126296. doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2024.126296. Epub 2024 Sep 3.
Risk communication tools based on epidemiological models can help inform decision-making, but must be responsive to health literacy needs to be effective. To facilitate informed choice about risks and benefits of COVID-19 vaccination, an epidemiological model called the COVID-19 Risk Calculator (CoRiCal) tool was developed by a multi-disciplinary team.
This paper demonstrates how to use health literacy principles to improve consumer understanding of COVID-19 and vaccine effects, using a range of methods that could be applied to any health emergency.
Stage 1: Health literacy optimisation and user testing to reduce improve understandability (n = 19). Stage 2: Experiments to explore the effect of risk communication formats on perceived understanding including probability, graphs, evaluative labels and comparison risks (n = 207). Stage 3: Randomised controlled trial (n = 2005) with 4 arms: 1) standard government information; 2) standard CoRiCal output based on bar graphs; 3) animation explaining bar graphs in "x per million" format; 4) animation explaining bar graphs in "1 in x chance" format. The primary outcome was knowledge about COVID-19 risk.
Stage 1 reduced the complexity of the text and graphs. Stage 2 showed that different risk communication formats change perceived understanding, with a preference for evaluative labels across 2 experiments and some indication people with lower health literacy had a greater preference for bar graphs. Stage 3 showed both animations increased knowledge compared to standard government information. There was no difference between the probability formats, or by health literacy level.
The results showed that simple explanations of complex epidemiological models improve knowledge about COVID-19 and vaccination. This demonstrates how health literacy design principles and short animations can be used to support informed decision making about health emergencies.
基于流行病学模型的风险沟通工具可以帮助为决策提供信息，但必须针对健康素养需求做出响应，才能发挥作用。为了促进人们对 COVID-19 疫苗接种风险和益处的知情选择，一个多学科团队开发了一种名为 COVID-19 风险计算器（CoRiCal）的流行病学模型工具。
本研究旨在通过一系列方法，利用健康素养原则提高消费者对 COVID-19 和疫苗效果的理解，这些方法可应用于任何卫生紧急情况。
第 1 阶段：健康素养优化和用户测试，以提高可理解性（n=19）。第 2 阶段：探索风险沟通格式对感知理解的影响的实验，包括概率、图表、评估标签和比较风险（n=207）。第 3 阶段：一项包含 4 个组的随机对照试验（n=2005）：1）标准政府信息；2）基于条形图的标准 CoRiCal 输出；3）以“x 百万分之一”格式解释条形图的动画；4）以“每 x 分之一的机会”格式解释条形图的动画。主要结局是关于 COVID-19 风险的知识。
第 1 阶段降低了文本和图表的复杂性。第 2 阶段表明，不同的风险沟通格式会改变感知理解，在两项实验中都更倾向于评估标签，并且一些证据表明，健康素养较低的人更倾向于条形图。第 3 阶段显示，与标准政府信息相比，两种动画都增加了知识。概率格式之间没有差异，也没有因健康素养水平而产生差异。
结果表明，对复杂的流行病学模型进行简单解释可以提高对 COVID-19 和疫苗接种的认识。这证明了健康素养设计原则和简短动画如何用于支持对卫生紧急情况的知情决策。
