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Transparent Communication of Health Risks pp 53–65Cite as

Graph Literacy for Health

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Abstract

Visual displays are often used to facilitate communication of important medical information to patients. However, even the simplest graphs are not understood by everyone. In this chapter, we develop and test a scale to measure health-related graph literacy and investigate the level of graph literacy in the USA and Germany. The scale was developed in the laboratory and tested on national samples in the two countries. The graph literacy scale predicted which patients can benefit from visual aids and had promising measurement properties. Results showed that approximately one-third of the population in the USA and Germany had both low-graph literacy and low-numeracy skills.

In this chapter, we partially reproduced the article Galesic, M., & Garcia-Retamero, R. (2011). Graph literacy: A cross-cultural comparison. Medical Decision Making, 31, 444−457.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Lentzeallee 94, Berlin, 14195, Germany

    Mirta Galesic Ph.D. & Rocio Garcia-Retamero Ph.D.

  2. Departamento de Psicología Experimental, Facultad de Psicología, University of Granada, Campus Universitario de Cartuja s/n, Granada, 18071, Spain

    Rocio Garcia-Retamero Ph.D.

Authors
  1. Mirta Galesic Ph.D.
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  2. Rocio Garcia-Retamero Ph.D.
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mirta Galesic Ph.D. .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Campus Universitario de Cartuja, Departmento de Psicologia Experimental, Universidad de Granada, Granada, 18071, Spain

    Rocio Garcia-Retamero

  2. , Ctr for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition, Max Planck Institute for Human Dev., Lentzeallee 94, Berlin, 14195, Germany

    Mirta Galesic

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Galesic, M., Garcia-Retamero, R. (2012). Graph Literacy for Health. In: Garcia-Retamero, R., Galesic, M. (eds) Transparent Communication of Health Risks. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-4358-2_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-4358-2_4

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-4357-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-4358-2

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