Assessing genetics websites for linguistic and cultural appropriateness for Latinos

BACKGROUND: The Illinois Genetics State Plan proposed public education as strategy to overcome lack of genetic awareness. Internet websites are important informational sources in the overall population. Growing Latino populations also are using the Internet. Genetics websites tend to be complex in language and scientific information; this presents challenges for Latinos with lower education levels and limited English proficiency. PURPOSE: To classify genetic-related websites by cultural appropriateness to Latinos and reading levels to promote sources of genetic information and promotion for Latinos. METHODS: Three Internet engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN) were selected. Search terms were “website” in combination with “genetics” and “genomics”. The Cultural Sensitivity Assessment Tool (CSAT) and Simple Measure of Gobbledygook (SMOG), a reading level score, were used to evaluate main pages of English websites. RESULTS: 60 websites were compiled for analysis. Genetic-related websites with extension .gov provided more bilingual English/Spanish resources (64.3%). Overall average CSAT score was < 2.5 which classifies them as culturally insensitive for Latinos. Most did not provide contact information to the reader that addresses Latinos. On the SMOG scale, we found that majority of government websites had higher reading levels. About 50% of websites with .org and .com/net extensions had lower reading levels. About 60% of the websites with .edu extension had higher reading levels. CONCLUSIONS: Latinos may find a growing number of bilingual genetics internet resources but most of these are not culturally appropriate. The high website reading levels contrast with lower levels of education among Latinos.