“There are nearly 2,000 top-level web domains across the Federal Government. While many of these sites provide taxpayers with valuable services and information, this proliferation of separate websites creates unnecessary confusion and inefficiency, wastes taxpayer dollars, and makes it difficult for the public to find important government information and resources.”

We totally agree with this assessment. A search on childhood obesity limited to .gov domains gives 156,000 results from state and federal agencies as varied as the FCC, the CDC, and the USDA. This is just one example of how challenging it can be for consumers to quickly find information online from the Federal Government.

In an attempt to rein in content on federal Web sites, the White House has put a moratorium on new .gov domains. Meanwhile, the Campaign to Cut Waste is reviewing all existing federal Web sites and developing a plan to consolidate or shut down enough sites to cut the total number of sites in half over the next year.

This is an ambitious undertaking. But it does not address the underlying challenge that got the Feds in this mess in the first place:

How do government agencies create useful, timely, and relevant content without clogging up search engine results with redundant results?

The answer? With good content strategy, of course!  Content strategy can help answer questions like:

• What content do we already have?
• What content do we need?
• How will people find our content?
• Who’s in charge of the content?
• How will content be maintained?
• How will we know when it’s time to update or remove content?

We concede that content strategy takes some work. It’s much easier to start with a clean slate, write some brand new content, borrow from existing content, package it all up with bright colors and slap a .gov URL on the end. But until federal agencies start cultivating and caring for the content that they already have, the government will continue to waste money churning out redundant content that the public can’t find and federal agencies can’t maintain.

Join the discussion with a live chat with the White House’s Director of Digital Strategy today at 4:00 PM Eastern.

The post Cut Waste, Cultivate Content: On the President’s Campaign to Cut Waste appeared first on CommunicateHealth.

Each year, the Center for Plain Language acknowledges the hard work it takes to create easy-to-understand materials and Web sites.

This year, our work with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Center for Environmental Health on Lead Poisoning: Words to Know from A to Z [select pages (PDF)] was awarded the ClearMark for Original Document: Public Sector. The international panel of judges highlighted its easy-to-read language and design, actionable information, and usefulness in everyday life.

And kudos to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), this year’s Grand Prize ClearMark winner—we just wish all tax forms were this clear!

Check out all the ClearMark Award winners.

And, if you’re anything like us, you’ll get a kick out of the WonderMark Award winners. According to the Center for Plain Language, “the WonderMark Awards are given for the least usable documents. The sort of documents that make us shake our heads and say: We wonder what they meant. We wonder what they were thinking.”

The post CommunicateHealth Wins National 2011 ClearMark Award! appeared first on CommunicateHealth.

The newest edition of Healthy People, officially released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on December 2nd, sets “ambitious, yet achievable” national public health priorities for the next decade. Healthy People establishes national benchmarks and identifies relevant data sources, allowing health professionals and the government to monitor progress over time.

One of the 42 topic areas included in Healthy People 2020 is Health Communication and Health Information Technology (IT).  The government recognizes health IT and health communication as an integral part of the implementation and success of the Healthy People initiative.

In addition to broad health communication objectives that include improving the health literacy of the population, the Health Communication and Health IT topic area places new emphasis on the importance of access to and usability of health IT. In fact, 7 of the 13 objectives for 2020 are related to technology, including objectives to increase:

• Use of electronic personal health management tools
• Access to the Internet
• The number of quality, health-related Websites
• The accessibility and usability of online health information
• The number of medical practices using electronic health records

This edition of Healthy People doesn’t just talk the talk. Healthy People 2020 is available entirely online (in contrast, Healthy People 2010 was published as two telephone books of information), allowing users to easily search for objectives and linking them to relevant evidence-based resources. The development of HealthyPeople.gov incorporated best practices in delivering online health information, including extensive user testing.

Kudos to HHS for continuing to highlight health communication and health IT as a national priority and for recognizing the many ways health communication and health IT can positively impact public health, health care, and health equity.

Read more about the Health Communication and HIT topic area and objectives.

Full disclosure: CommunicateHealth was involved in the development of the new, more user-friendly HealthyPeople.gov site.

The post Introducing Healthy People 2020 appeared first on CommunicateHealth.

The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has released The National Plan to Improve Health Literacy – with support from Sebelius and others who see the relationship between improving health literacy and increasing access to cost-effective, high-quality health care.

The action plan contains seven goals, each with specific strategies for different sectors of the health system, such as payers, the media, government agencies, and health care professionals, to improve health literacy. These goals emphasize the importance of creating health and safety information that is accurate, accessible, and actionable. (Read the full press release from HHS.)

“We each have a role to play in improving health literacy,” notes CommunicateHealth co-founder Stacy Robison, who served as a contributing editor of the National Action Plan. “Improving the way public health professionals and the media communicate health information will go a long way toward achieving our goal of a health literate society.”

Listen to an interview with the lead editor of the National Action Plan, Dr. Cynthia Baur, to learn how individuals and organizations can use the action plan.

The post “Health literacy is needed to make health reform a reality” – Kathleen Sebelius appeared first on CommunicateHealth.

Click the thumbnail to see a full scan of the letter, or read the text of the advance letter from the Census Bureau.

The 2010 Census advance letter represents an impressive effort on the part of the U.S. Census Bureau to use plain language in their public communications. The letter is mailed to all households a few days before they received the census form. Here are a few of the plain language techniques used in the letter:

• Uses the active voice: “When you receive your form, please fill it out and mail it in promptly.”
• Addresses readers directly using pronouns: “About one week from now, you will receive a 2010 Census form in the mail.”
• Uses short paragraphs. The body of the letter is two short paragraphs. The first is just two sentences long. This helps readers easily scan for the most important information, and leaves plenty of white space on the page.
• Covers only one topic in each paragraph. The first paragraph tells readers what action to take. The second paragraph explains the benefits of taking action.

And for the first time in U.S. census history, the Census Bureau sent a bilingual advance letter and form to the over 13 million households in areas where Spanish is predominantly spoken at home.  It’s too soon to tell, but we think the plain language letter could boost census mail-back rates and save the government money.

The post Plain Language Props: 2010 Census Advance Letter appeared first on CommunicateHealth.

Recipients of the ClearMark Award for Best Public Sector Web site Xanthi Scrimgeour & Stacy Robison with Sandra Hilfiker & Linda Harris from the U.S. Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion

The Quick Guide to Healthy Living, part of healthfinder.gov, captured the 2010 ClearMark Award for the best plain language public sector Web site.

“This site hits the mark with its simple-to-use and easy-to-understand format. It provides people at all levels of literacy with relevant health-care information,” judges said. (Washington Post, April 30, 2010)

The ClearMark Awards, sponsored by the Center for Plain Language, were presented at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. on April 29, 2010.

“We were thrilled to award CommunicateHealth in collaboration with the Office of Disease Prevention and and Health Promotion, one of our first national ClearMark Awards,” said Annetta Cheek, Chair, Board of Directors of the Center for Plain Language. “They were a strong contender out of a very competitive field of 160 submissions.”

The Quick Guide to Healthy Living is managed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.  The Web site includes plain language health information on over 60 health and wellness topics. Extensive usability testing was conducted before and after launching the Quick Guide. CommunicateHealth oversees content development for the site.

A national panel of plain language experts served as judges for the ClearMark Awards. For more information or instructions on how to submit a 2011 ClearMark nomination, go to www.centerforplainlanguage.org.

The post CommunicateHealth Wins National ClearMark Award! appeared first on CommunicateHealth.