Designing Quality Prevention ToolsCaitlin Blood, MPH, CHES

Office of Disease Prevention and Health PromotionU.S. Department of Health and Human Services

September 17, 2015

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Healthy People: Framework for Improving Nation’s Health

A national agenda that communicates a vision for improving health and achieving health equity

Creates a comprehensive strategic framework uniting health promotion and disease prevention issues under a single umbrella

A set of science-based, measurable objectives with targets to be achieved by the year 2020

Requires tracking of data-driven outcomes to monitor progress and to motivate, guide, and focus action

42 Topic Areas■ Access to Health Services■ Adolescent Health ■ Arthritis, Osteoporosis, and Chronic Back

Conditions■ Blood Disorders and Blood Safety■ Cancer■ Chronic Kidney Disease■ Dementias, including Alzheimer’s Disease■ Diabetes■ Disability and Health■ Early and Middle Childhood■ Educational and Community-Based

Programs■ Environmental Health■ Family Planning■ Food Safety■ Genomics■ Global Health ■ Health-related Quality of Life and Well-

being■ Health Communication and Health

Information Technology■ Healthcare Associated Infections■ Heart Disease and Stroke

■ Hearing and Other Sensory or Communication Disorders

■ HIV■ Immunization and Infectious Diseases■ Injury and Violence Prevention■ Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender

Health■ Maternal, Infant, and Child Health■ Medical Product Safety■ Mental Health and Mental Disorders■ Nutrition and Weight Status■ Occupational Safety and Health■ Older Adults ■ Oral Health■ Physical Activity■ Public Health Infrastructure■ Preparedness■ Respiratory Diseases■ Sexually Transmitted Diseases■ Sleep Health ■ Social Determinants of Health ■ Substance Abuse■ Tobacco Use■ Vision

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Disability and Health

■ Goal: Promote the health and well-being of people with disabilities – Systems and Policies– Barriers to Health Care– Environment– Activities and Participation

■ Currently no crossover between Disability and Health Communication/HIT objectives

HC/HIT Topic Area & Objectives

■ Goal: Use health communication strategies and health information technology (IT) to improve population health outcomes and health care quality, and to achieve health equity.

■ HC/HIT 8: Increase the proportion of quality, health-related websites

– HC/HIT 8.1: Increase the proportion of health-related websites that meet three or more evaluation criteria for disclosing information that can be used to assess information reliability

– HC/HIT 8.2: Increase the proportion of health-related websites that follow established usability principles

Development of National Quality Website Survey

■ HC/HIT 8.1: Assess information reliability– Website Information Evaluation Instrument – 6 Criteria and Reliability Requirements:

Identity, Purpose, Content Development, Privacy, User Feedback, Content Updating

Development of National Quality Website Survey

■ HC/HIT 8.2: Usability principles– Website Usability Evaluation Instrument– 3 criteria composed of 19 usability principles and

59 usability measurements Site Design, Information Architecture, Content

Design

Development of National Quality Website Survey

■ Sample question (Site design)– 6. Ensure site is accessible for users with

disabilities and uses elements of 508 compliance Is ALT text provided for links, images,

video, and animation (this text should pop up when a user hovers the mouse over the element in question)?

Is captioning provided for video and animation?

Is such captioning easy to read (in terms of size and contrast)?

Health Literacy Online

■ First Edition (2010)– Written for web designers, web content specialists,

and other PH communication professionals Deliver online health information that is

actionable and engaging Create a health website that’s easy to use Evaluate and improve health websites with user-

centered design

Health Literacy Online

■ 6 strategies how to write and design health websites that are accessible to users with limited literacy skills– Learn about your users– Write actionable content– Display content clearly on the page– Organize content and simplify navigation– Engage users with interactive content– Evaluate and revise your site

Health Literacy Online

■ Second Edition (October 2015)– Focus on broadening access to user-friendly

health information and services on the web– Recommendations reflect literature related to

the cognitive processing and online behavior of adults with limited literacy skills

Health Literacy Online

– Responsible digital design and development: Prioritizes the information needs and

preferences of consumers Involves end-users as co-creators of web

products Responsive design for different screen

sizes Recognizes that designing for limited

literacy users is designing for all users

User-Centered Design and Prevention Tools

■ Focus on users throughout the design process

■ “Design Thinking”– Understanding what people want and need in

their lives– Create ideas that better meet consumers’

needs and desires

■ Participatory Design/ “Co-Design”– Involving intended users throughout entire

development process

Looking Ahead

■ Improvement in delivering accessible and usable HIT tools

■ Healthy People 2030– HC/HIT Quality Website Survey

Thank you!

Contact Information:

Caitlin Blood, MPH, CHES

Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, U.S. Department of Health and

Human Services

Caitlin.Blood@hhs.gov

240-453-8265