Communication Practices & Standards

How does your organization prioritize clear, effective communication? What do you already do well? Where do you want to expand your efforts? Explore these questions and more below.

Ways to Get Started:

• Review Focus Area #5 in the toolkit beginning on page 61. Download Advancing Organizational Health Literacy (English | Spanish | screen-reader-friendly version).
• Take the self-assessment for Focus Area #5 beginning on page 8.Download Organizational Health Literacy Assessment (English | Spanish).
• Continue exploring the themes and resources below.

Activities and Worksheets

Explore these activities related to communication practices and standards:

• Pre-Writing Planning (English | Spanish)
• Practicing Cultural Humility (English | Spanish)

Additional Resources

On July 17, 2026, we held the webinar Communicating Data for Action: Helping People Find, Understand, and Use Public Health Data with CCDPH’s Dr. Darcie Moeller and special guests:

• Caleb King, MPH, Epidemiologist III, CCDPH
• Kelley Bemis,  MPH, Program Manager, Surveillance and Informatics, CCDPH

The webinar explored strategies for sharing data clearly and effectively and highlighted real-life tools from CCDPH.

Check out the webinar and its related resources on communication practices and standards below.

Webinar

Review the presentation slides (PDF) or watch the recording below.

Using Local Heat Map Data Guide

Check out this guide on using Suburban Cook County Health Atlas data (PDF) to get ideas for using heat map data to advance your work.

Readability: It’s About More Than Just Grade Level

Watch the Communications Corner short video below to learn about plain language tips that will help you make your content easy to navigate, understand, and use  – or check out this quick overview (PDF).

External Resources

Cultural Humility

• Culturally Connected – Resources exploring the intersection of cultural humility and health literacy with various activities and examples across Canada
• San Francisco State University: Cultural Humility: People, Principles and Practices – 30 minute video from Professor Vivian Chavez on cultural humility and its importance

Health Literacy Practices

• Agency for Healthcare Quality and Research: AHRQ Health Literacy Universal Precautions, Toolkit 3rd ed.  – Varied plain language tools including webinars, a resource library, case studies, and more
• Health Literacy Out Loud – Podcast and additional resources on health literacy topics from author Helen Osborne
• New South Wales and Deakin University: Teach Back – Overview of teach back strategies to check for understanding when sharing information
• Tufts Medicine: Center for Health Literacy Research + Practice – Varied resources in best practices for personal health literacy and organizational health literacy
• University of Maryland Horowitz Center for Health Literacy: Consumer Health Information Hub – Varied resources around effective public health information

Plain Language

• Center for Plain Language – Resources on federal government plain language evaluation and Clear Mark awards for plain language with examples across health, government, and other areas
• Literacy Works’ Clear Language Lab: Chicago-based non-profit dedicated to adult literacy and plain language  – Varied plain language tools including webinars, a resource library, case studies, and more
• Oxford Guide to Plain English (5th edition) – Reference text on all things plain language
• U.S. General Services Administration: Plain Language Dot Gov – Government website on plain language practices with various examples