Relating Consumer Knowledge of Health Terms and Health Concepts

1
Relating Consumer Knowledge of Health Terms and
Health Concepts
Alla Keselmana, Tony Tsea, Jon Crowellb, Allen
Brownea, Long Ngob, Qing Zengb aLHNCBC, National
Library of Medicine, NIH, DHHS, Bethesda,
MD bDSG, Brigham and Womens Hospital, Harvard
Medical School, Boston, MA
5
1
3
RESULTS
SURVEY CONSTRUCTION
Surface-level questions prominent
association Ulcer gt digestion Concept level
questions conceptual gist Ulcer gt open sore
Out of 5
Sample surface-level item
Renal __heart __lung __kidney __dont
know (target) (2 distractors) (correct)
term
concept
Items distribution
Linear regression analysis of term-concept mean
differences At all frequency levels term
familiarity gt concept familiarity (plt.001)
. Significant gap for term likely vs. unlikely
to be familiar (p.006). Trend for terms
somewhat likely vs. unlikely (p.07)
2
SURVEY ITEM SELECTION
gastroesophageal reflux
4
6
CONCLUSIONS
PARTICIPANTS
Health terms extracted
Concept understanding lags behind term
familiarity - especially for terms that
occur in medical literature frequently Focusing
on terminology gap exclusively may misrepresent
consumer health materials readability and
consumers ability to comprehend them A
methodological approach for an in-depth study of
concept understanding is needed Eventually,
findings can inform works on adaptive health
applications and readability of consumer health
texts

• Expected consumer familiarity computed
• frequency across health text corpora
• empirical test

Term score categories 0.8 1.0 likely to be
familiar 0.5 0.8 somewhat likely to be
familiar 0.0 0.5 unlikely to be familiar
Select 5 items at each familiarity level
Zeng Q, Kim E, Crowell J, Tse T. A text
corpora-based estimation of the familiarity of
health terminology. Proc ISBMDA 2005 184-92.