Objective
The Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS) launched the Your Vascular Health microsite to enhance public awareness of vascular disease through educational content. The effectiveness of such materials depends on adherence to national recommendations that patient-facing content be written at a sixth-grade reading level to ensure accessibility for the median United States adult. With evidence suggesting that patient education materials frequently exceed recommended reading levels across medical disciplines, we aimed to assess the readability of all SVS Your Vascular Health patient education flyers.
Methods
We analyzed all publicly available SVS Your Vascular Health flyers using four validated readability metrics: Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level (FKGL), Simple Measure of Gobbledygook (SMOG), Automated Readability Index (ARI), and Flesch Reading Ease (FRE). FKGL, SMOG, and ARI scores (which correlate with grade level) <6.0 and FRE scores >80 indicate sixth-grade reading level compliance. Estimated reading times were calculated at 200 words per minute, and descriptive statistics were reported.
Results
None of the 15 reviewed flyers met the recommended sixth-grade readability threshold. Mean scores were FKGL 9.9 (standard deviation [SD], 1.7), SMOG 12.1 (SD, 1.5), ARI 9.4 (SD, 1.8), and FRE 43.8 (SD, 10.6). The mean reading time was 3 minutes (range, 2-5 minutes). The most readable flyer was on thoracic outlet syndrome, which ranged from seventh- to eleventh-grade reading level with different measures (FKGL 7.6, SMOG 11.0, ARI 7.4), whereas the least readable was on Cerebrovascular Disease at a fourteenth- to fifteenth-grade reading level (FKGL 13.9, SMOG 15.0, ARI 14.1).
Conclusions
The SVS Your Vascular Health patient education flyers fail to meet established health literacy standards despite their public awareness mission. Materials average nearly a tenth-grade reading level—four grades above national recommendations. These findings raise concerns about accessibility and equity in vascular disease education efforts, particularly for vulnerable populations with limited health literacy. Improving readability should become a central priority in vascular public health outreach, with further research needed to assess whether these materials effectively reach and engage intended audiences.
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