ArticleScience advances2021
Precision communication: Physicians' linguistic adaptation to patients' health literacy.
Article in Science advances, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 25 papers.
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
25 citing papers in PubMed.
- The Real-Time Support Role of Augmented Reality Technology in Shared Decision-Making in Neurosurgery Under the SEGUE Framework: Randomized Controlled Trial.Journal of medical Internet research · 2026Trial
- Trial
- Community voices, strategies to improve understanding, and access to prostate cancer genomic testing.Patient education and counseling · 2026Article
- Applications, Challenges, and Future Directions of Large Language Models in Health Care Communication: Scoping Review.Journal of medical Internet research · 2026Article
- Empowering choices: insights from healthcare professionals on shared decision-making in kidney cancer.BJU international · 2026Article
- Patient and Physician Perspectives on Using Risk Prediction to Support Breast Cancer Surveillance Decision Making.Medical decision making : an international journal of the Society for Medical Decision Making · 2026Article
- ¡Coma, Muévase y Viva!: qualitative findings from a dietary and lifestyle change intervention for Latinas in the rural desert region of Inland Southern California.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Defining Severe Diabetes Mellitus: A Consensus Framework for Grading and Staging Diabetes Based on Pathophysiology and Complications.Diabetes & metabolism journal · 2025Review
- Understanding posterior drooling in children and young people with neurodevelopmental disabilities: a parental perspective.BMC pediatrics · 2025Article
- Review
- Patient-Perceived Risk of Hepatocellular Carcinoma and Net Benefit of Surveillance: A Multicenter Survey Study.The American journal of gastroenterology · 2025Article
- Shared Decision-Making on Life-Sustaining Treatment: A Survey of Current Barriers in Practice Among Clinicians Across China.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Prudent Physician Anger in Patient-Physician Interactions.Health care analysis : HCA : journal of health philosophy and policy · 2025Article
- Development and validation of the Physician's Health Literacy Competence Scale: A step towards effective doctor-patient communication.Medicine · 2025Article
- Article
- A mobile app for chronic disease self-management for individuals with low health literacy: A multisite randomized controlled clinical trial.Journal of ageing and longevity · 2024Article
- How Can We Improve Patient-Clinician Communication for Men Diagnosed with Prostate Cancer?European urology open science · 2024Article
- Defining the Time-limited Trial for Patients with Critical Illness: An Official American Thoracic Society Workshop Report.Annals of the American Thoracic Society · 2024Article
- Helping patient educators meet health literacy needs: End-user testing and iterative development of an innovative health literacy editing tool.PEC innovation · 2023Article
- Cancer Screening and Treatment Delays During the COVID-19 Pandemic and the Role of Health Literacy in Care Re-engagement: Findings from an NCI-Designated Comprehensive Cancer Center sample.Journal of cancer education : the official journal of the American Association for Cancer Education · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Little quantitative research has explored which clinician skills and behaviors facilitate communication. Mutual understanding is especially challenging when patients have limited health literacy (HL). Two strategies hypothesized to improve communication include matching the complexity of language to patients’ HL (“universal tailoring”); or always using simple language (“universal precautions”). Through computational linguistic analysis of 237,126 email exchanges between dyads of 1094 physicians and 4331 English-speaking patients, we assessed matching (concordance/discordance) between physicians’ linguistic complexity and patients’ HL, and classified physicians’ communication strategies. Among low HL patients, discordance was associated with poor understanding (
Identifiers
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.