Assessing the readability of health education messages.
Vicki S. Freimuth · PubMed · 1980
for public education, it is difficult to determine if the intended audience will be able to comprehend the message. Readability formulas have been developed to predict the grade level at which a reader can understand a specific message. A readability formula is a mathematical equation derived by regression analysis. Essentially, an equation is found that best expresses the relationship between a measure of the difficulty experienced by people reading a given text and a measure of the linguistic characteristics of that text. This formula can then be used to predict reading difficulty from the linguistic characteristics of other texts. Of the more than 40 readability formulas available, some of the more widely used ones are the Dale-Chall Formula, the Flesch Formulas, the Fog Index, the Readability Graph, and the SMOG Grading Formula (1). The following guidelines may be useful when selecting an appropriate readability formula.