Lung cancer screening: assessment of health literacy and readability of online educational resources

BACKGROUND: Lung cancer screening can reduce mortality but can be a complex, multi-step process. Poor health literacy is associated with unfavorable outcomes and decreased use of preventative services, so it is important to address barriers to care through efficient and practical education. The readability of lung cancer screening materials for patients is unknown and may not be at the recommended 6th grade reading level set by the American Medical Association. Our goals were to: (1) measure the health literacy of a lung cancer screening population from an urban academic medical center, and (2) examine the readability of online educational materials for lung cancer screening. METHODS: We performed a retrospective cross sectional study at a single urban academic center. Health literacy was assessed using three validated screening questions. To assess the readability of educational materials, we performed a Google search using the phrase, “What is lung cancer screening?” and the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level (FKGL) formula was used to estimate the grade level required to understand the text. RESULTS: There were 404 patients who underwent lung cancer screening during the study period. The prevalence of inadequate/marginal health literacy was 26.7–38.0%. Fifty websites were reviewed and four were excluded from analysis because they were intended for medical providers. The mean FKGL for the 46 websites combined was 10.6 ± 2.2. CONCLUSIONS: Low health literacy was common and is likely a barrier to appropriate education for lung cancer screening. The current online educational materials regarding lung cancer screening are written above the recommended reading level set by the American Medical Association.