Using Motion Comics to address health literacy among young people

It is estimated that 10% to 37% of youth have limited health literacy, which can be defined as one’s ability to understand provided health information well enough to make informed health choices and decisions and adopt healthy behaviors. People with limited health literacy are more likely to experience negative health outcomes and/or consequences such as missing important medical screenings, increased trips to the emergency room and increased difficulty in managing health conditions.  

In order to address and reduce STD/HIV risk and risk behaviors in youth, we developed a motion comic to increase HIV/STD knowledge, attitudes, and protective behaviors and reduce myths/misconceptions and HIV/STD related stigma.  Focus groups with youth were used throughout the development of the motion comic to increase story line relevance, saliency and comprehension.   During numerous focus groups, issues of literacy and health literacy were evident, for example, slow or struggling readers and/or low reading comprehension.  Through the use of audio, visuals and extensive youth input, the motion comic has the potential to increase the likelihood that low-literacy viewers will be able to understand and use the health information presented to them.  During this presentation, we will discuss the literacy struggles of the respondents and describe the ways in which the motion comic can reduce literacy barriers.