What is Plain Language?
Plain language is communication that is clear, accessible, and useful.
How Can Plain Language Advance Public Health?
Effective public health communications is critical to help people stay informed and make decisions about their health. Information about public health can be confusing, jargony, and fast-changing, so communicating in plain language helps to translate and distill what people need to know. When accurate information about public health is hard to find or understand, it also becomes easier for false and misleading information to take hold.
Using plain language can advance health literacy, build trust in your organization as a source of information, and promote overall community health. While plain language won’t solve every public health communication challenge, all health communications can be made more effective by communicating plainly.
How to Use this Guide
In this guide, you’ll find plain language principles, simple techniques that can make your communications more accessible, and resources to learn more about plain language. The sections of this guide contain best practices and tools to use before you start writing, when you’re organizing your content, while you’re writing, and when you’re reviewing and testing your communications. The guide ends with additional resources to help you continue to build your plain language communications skills.
This guide is organized into four sections:
- Step 1: Prepare Your Communications
- Step 2: Develop and Organize Your Communications
- Step 3: Review and Testing
- Plain Language Resources
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