Communicating health research to a diverse audience: what can plain language summaries offer?

Abstract

Plain language summaries (PLSs) are research summaries written with a non-expert audience in mind. PLSs have been a part of academic publishing for several decades and serve as a means of providing accessible research to a diverse audience. Mainly located in journal articles in text-only format, PLSs also form part of research funding applications for consumer groups or government agencies and can be found in audio, visual and graphical formats. Although growing in popularity in recent years with journal publishers and researchers, most health and medical journals still do not publish PLSs. Of those that do, they are not a mandatory requirement. PLSs play a valuable role in communicating health research to a diverse audience, however they remain an underutilised resource.

This thesis demonstrates where gaps exist in the collective understanding of how PLSs could be optimised to communicate health research to the public. Such gaps exist in evaluating and challenging assumptions related to current practices in producing, publishing and disseminating PLSs. Most of the work in the field of PLSs has been experimental in design, with less attention given to the adoption, implementation and sustainability of PLSs. Focus on these areas is vital as PLS application into practice remains inconsistent. PLS have the power to meaningfully engage people with trustworthy research, playing an essential role in the oftentimes confusing landscape of health information. Attention must be given by scholarly publishing and academia to support researchers to write and distribute PLSs, providing access to a diverse audience of people.