Abstract
Background
Human papilloma virus (HPV) is a prime factor in the development of many cancers and genital warts in Canada. A majority of sexually active Canadians are likely to have an HPV infection during their lifetime. Information provided online by each specific provincial department/ministry of health in regard to HPV and vaccination may not be at an ideal standard for the lay population to understand and should be evaluated.
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to assess the readability and coherence of provincial department/ministry of health HPV information to determine if it is adequate for the Canadian lay population to understand.
Methods and Results
Seven of ten Canadian provincial department/ministry of health’s HPV information websites were evaluated for readability and coherence. The readability tools Gunning-Fog index and Simple Measure of Gobbledygook (SMOG) both found that approximately 60 % of the population for each of the provinces evaluated may be able to understand the information. The coherence measures of latent semantic analysis (LSA) and computerized propositional idea density rater (CPIDR) both concluded that relative to the benchmark that represents the lay population, the coherence level is not appropriate (LSA, p < 0.001and CPIDR, p < 0.001).
Interpretation
HPV information provided by the Canadian provincial department/ministry of health websites may not be adequate for the lay population to understand. Readability and coherence are important factors that should be considered to improve the quality and adequacy of the information provided so the message reaches the Canadian population.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Butler-Jones. (2013). The chief public health officer’s report on the state of public health in Canada. Infectious disease—the never ending threat. Public Health Agency of Canada. http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/cphorsphc-respcacsp/2013/assets/pdf/2013-eng.pdf.
Torre LA, Bray F, Siegel RL, Ferlay J, Lortet‐Tieulent J, Jemal A (2015) Global cancer statistics, 2012. Cancer Journal for Clinicians 65(2):87–108. doi:10.3322/caac.21262
Markowitz L. & Unger E. (2012). Human papillomavirus epidemiology and prevention of vaccine-preventable diseases. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. Available at: http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/hpv.html
Castellsagué X, Naud P, Chow S, Wheeler C, Germar M, Lehtinen M et al (2014) Risk of newly detected infections and cervical abnormalities in women seropositive for naturally acquired HPV-16/18 antibodies: analysis of the control arm. J Infec Dis 210(4):517–34
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2014). HPV and cancer. Available at: http://www.cdc.gov/hpv/cancer.html (Accessed August 9, 2015).
Hoffman-Goetz L, Donelle L, Ahmed R (2014) Health literacy in Canada: a primer for students. Canadian Scholars’ Press Inc., Toronto
Friedman DB, Hoffman-Goetz L (2006) A systematic review of readability and comprehension instruments used for print and web-based cancer information. Health Education & Behavior 33(3):352–373
Friedman DB, Hoffman-Goetz L, Arocha JF (2004) Readability of cancer information on the Internet. Journal of Cancer Education 19(2):117–122
Mcinnes N, Haglund B (2011) Readability of online health information: implications for health literacy. Inform Health Soc Care 36(4):173–89
Kintsch E, Mcnamara DS, Songer NB, Kintsch W (1992) Revising the coherence of science texts to improve comprehension and learning (technical report 92-03). Institute of Cognitive Science, Boulder, Retrieved November 25th, 2014, from http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.20.3459&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Glanz K, Rimer BK, Viswanath K (eds) (2008) Health behavior and health education: theory, research, and practice. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco
Gunning R (1952) The technique of clear writing. McGraw-Hill, New York, NY
McLaughlin GH (1969) SMOG grading: a new readability formula. Journal of Reading 12(8):639–646
Wang L, Miller M, Schmitt M, Wen F (2013) Assessing readability formula differences with written health information materials: application, results, and recommendations. Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy 9(5):503–516
Janan D, Wray D (2014) Reassessing the accuracy and use of readability formulae. Malaysian Journal of Learning and Instruction 11:127–145
National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research Ltd. (NIWA). (2005) A proposal for strength-of-agreement criteria for Lin’s concordance correlation coefficient. Ministry of Health New Zealand. Website: https://www.medcalc.org/download/pdf/McBride2005.pdf.
Hayes B (2013) IALS and essential skills in Canadian literacy policy and practice: a descriptive overview (Summer Institute 2013). The Centre for Literacy, Montreal, QB, Retrieved November 25, 2014, from http://www.centreforliteracy.qc.ca/sites/default/files/IALS_ES_CdnLtcyPlcy_Prctce.pdf
Landauer TK, Foltz PW, Laham D (1998) An introduction to latent semantic analysis. Discourse Processes 25(2-3):259–284
Kintsch W, Keenan J (1973) Reading rate and retention as a function of the number of propositions in the base structure of sentences. Cognitive Psychology 5(3):257–274
Covington, M. A. (2007). CPIDR 3 user manual. University of Georgia Artificial Intelligence Center. Retrieved November 25, 2014, from http://ai1.ai.uga.edu/caspr/CPIDR-Manual.pdf.
Van Dijk TA, Kintsch W, Van Dijk TA (1983) Strategies of discourse comprehension. Academic, New York
Brown C, Snodgrass T, Kemper SJ, Herman R, Covington MA (2008) Automatic measurement of propositional idea density from part-of-speech tagging. Behavior Research Methods 40(2):540–545
R Core Team (2016) R: a language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria, URL https://www.R-project.org/
Marlow L, Waller J, Wardle J (2007) Parental attitudes to pre-pubertal HPV vaccination. Vaccine 25(11):1945–1952
Ta-Min R, Arocha JF, Hoffman-Goetz L (2007) Assessing readability and comprehensibility of web-based cancer information. The Journal of Information Technology in Healthcare 5(5):300–312
Reinhart T (1980) Conditions for text coherence. Poetics Today 1:161–180
Acknowledgments
Dr. Hoffman-Goetz, PhD., University of Waterloo, Canada
Dr. Meyer, PhD., University of Waterloo, Canada
Mr. Li, MMath & MAcc., University of Oregon
Ms. Caroline Bravo, MSc., University of Waterloo
Ms. Disha Patel, BSc., University of Waterloo
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Tulsieram, K.L., Arocha, J.F. & Lee, J. Readability and Coherence of Department/Ministry of Health HPV Information. J Canc Educ 33, 147–153 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13187-016-1082-6
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13187-016-1082-6