ArticlePilot and feasibility studies2019
Development of mass media resources to improve the ability of parents of primary school children in Uganda to assess the trustworthiness of claims about the effects of treatments: a human-centred design approach.
Article in Pilot and feasibility studies, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Exploring co-design: a systematic review of concepts, processes, models, and frameworks used in public health research.Journal of public health (Oxford, England) · 2025Pooled it
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- Interventions to promote critical health literacy: a scoping review.Health promotion international · 2026Article
- Developing critical thinking and decision-making skills for cancer information: the Informed Health Choice-Cancer online learning resource.Journal of cancer survivorship : research and practice · 2025Article
- Quality criteria for evaluating creative and interactive science dissemination in public outreach efforts: A scoping review.PloS one · 2025Article
- Strategies for communicating scientific evidence on healthcare to managers and the population: a scoping review.Health research policy and systems · 2023Article
- Teaching critical thinking about health information and choices in secondary schools: human-centred design of digital resources.F1000Research · 2023Article
- Using claims in the media to teach essential concepts for evidence-based healthcare.BMJ evidence-based medicine · 2021Review
- Development of the informed health choices resources in four countries to teach primary school children to assess claims about treatment effects: a qualitative study employing a user-centred approach.Pilot and feasibility studies · 2020Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
12 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundClaims about what we need to do to improve our health are everywhere. Most interventions simply tell people what to do, and do not empower them to critically assess health information. Our objective was to design mass media resources to enable the public to critically appraise the trustworthiness of claims about the benefits and harms of treatments and make informed health choices.
methodsResearch was conducted between 2013 and 2016 across multiple iterative phases. Participants included researchers, journalists, parents, other members of the public. First, we developed a list of 32 key concepts that people need to understand to be able to assess the trustworthiness of claims about treatment effects. Next, we used a human-centred design approach, to generate ideas for resources for teaching the key concepts, and developed and user-tested prototypes through qualitative interviews. We addressed identified problems and repeated this process until we had a product that was deemed relevant and desirable by our target audience, and feasible to implement.
resultsWe generated over 160 ideas, mostly radio-based. After prototyping some of these, we found that a podcast produced collaboratively by health researchers and journalists was the most promising approach. We developed eight episodes of the Informed Health Choices podcast, a song on critical thinking about treatments and a reminder checklist. Early versions of the podcast were reportedly too long, boring and confusing. We shortened the episodes, included one key concept per episode, and changed to story-telling with skits. The final version of the podcast was found to be useful, understandable, credible and desirable.
conclusionWe found many problems with various prototypes of mass media resources. Using a human-centred design approach, we overcame those problems. We have developed a guide to help others prepare similar podcasts.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.