FAQS

What to consider when creating your handout

The American Academy of Family Physicians provides helpful information to know when you are creating a handout:

• The average American adult reads at an eighth-grade level. Patients, especially those with limited literacy, do not understand common medical terms, such as rectum, stool, or screening
• Even highly literate people prefer simple, easy to read handouts
• Most people only retain two to four key points from a handout

When designing your handout, consider the following:

• Keep it short and concise
• Use wide margins and leave white space between sections
• Keep it simple by using short sentences and short paragraphs, consider using bulleted lists
• Make it personal by using "you" as if you were addressing a patient in-person
• Focus on what the public NEEDS to know, instead of what is nice for them to know
• Focus on what the public needs to DO, instead of etiology, anatomy, etc.
• Be specific, such as "drink 8 ounces of water at least four times a day" instead of "Drunk plenty of fluids"
• Avoid medical jargon and terminology, unless necessary
• Be aware of language, customs, and values to create a culturally sensitive brochure
• Organize information using headings
• Use images, when appropriate, and within reason

The CDC offers a fantastic guide for creating easy-to-understand materials, which includes a checklist on page 29 (Appendix A): https://www.cdc.gov/healthliteracy/pdf/simply_put.pdf

How to create a handout

There are many different tools you can use to make your handout, which you may also find referred to as a brochure. A simple Google search for "handout maker" or "handout template" will bring up many results. Microsoft Word is the most common.  Word has over a dozen brochure templates you can use to get you started: https://templates.office.com/en-us/Brochures 

The CDC also provides some tools and templates for health communication materials: https://www.cdc.gov/healthcommunication/toolstemplates.html

And you can see an example of a handout here: https://www.cdc.gov/physicalactivity/activepeoplehealthynation/pdf/Active-People-Healthy-Nation-Role-of-Public-Health-508.pdf

References

American Academy of Family Physicians. (n.d.). American Family Physician patient handout instructions. https://www.aafp.org/dam/AAFP/documents/journals/afp/PatientHandoutInstructions.pdf