Using Crowdsourcing to Evaluate Lay-friendliness of Health-related Information

Ms. Razieh Azari, Dr. Sonia Asmahène Halimi

Razieh.Azari@etu.unige.ch

Health communication has been recognised as a powerful tool which can improve health outcomes and the general health status of individuals, public, and special groups. In recent years, much attention has been paid to the importance of the lay-friendliness of health communication and health-related information. People, especially patients, demand sufficient, clear, and easy-to-read and understand, i.e. lay-friendly, information to make informed decisions related to their health. To evaluate and improve lay-friendliness of health-related information, several methods including readability formulas, user-testing, etc. have been applied. Proved by previous studies, these methods have shortcomings and disadvantages. The study intended to present crowdsourcing as an alternative method for evaluating and improving lay-friendliness of health-related information. Crowdsourcing as a novel and dynamic phenomenon has been developing to encompass a growing multitude of domains and areas. To achieve the objectives of the study and demonstrate the applicability of the proposed method, a proof-of-concept experiment was conducted. The study reports on the crowd’s evaluation of lay-friendliness of health-related information and the implemented crowdsourcing workflow.