Observational studyJournal of general internal medicine2024
New Frontiers in Health Literacy: Using ChatGPT to Simplify Health Information for People in the Community.
Observational study in Journal of general internal medicine, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 50 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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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
50 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Artificial intelligence (AI) for social innovation in health education: promoting health literacy through personalized ai-driven learning tools - a systematic review.BMC medical education · 2025Pooled it
- Rethinking Pediatric Asthma Education Through Large Language Model Generation and Simplification: Randomized Double-Blind Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2026Trial
- Online Plain Language Tool and Health Information Quality: A Randomized Clinical Trial.JAMA network open · 2024Trial
- Evaluation of an Artificial Intelligence-Driven Language Model for Age-Specific Patient Education in Pediatric Orthopaedics.Journal of the Pediatric Orthopaedic Society of North America · 2026Article
- Artificial Intelligence-Mediated Discharge Document for Accessible Health Care (AIM-HEALTH): Protocol for a Prospective, Observational, Noninterventional Study.JMIR research protocols · 2026Observational
- Evaluating the ability of AI chatbots to provide informed consent information for common oncological surgeries.Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England · 2026Article
- Experiences of Primiparous Mothers Using ChatGPTfor Breastfeeding and Infant Care.Maternal & child nutrition · 2026Article
- Navigating Diabetes Management in the Digital Era: Scoping Review of Online Health Information-Seeking Behavior.Journal of medical Internet research · 2026Article
- Automated Approaches of Text Simplification of Patient Education Materials: Scoping Review.Journal of medical Internet research · 2026Article
- Article
- Multilingual Video Education for Hospitalized Patients With Myocardial Infarction (EDUCATE-MI): Single-Arm Implementation Study.JMIR cardio · 2026Article
- Artificial intelligence in primary care: innovation at a crossroads.The Lancet. Primary care · 2026Review
- Challenges of using generative artificial intelligence for diabetes patient education: a cross-platform analysis of the quality, readability, and actionability of text generated by large language models.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- "I don't see anything specifically about Black/African Americans." Testing an Alzheimer-specific generative AI tool tailored for African American/Black communities.ACM transactions on computing for healthcare · 2026Article
- Can co-designed educational interventions help consumers think critically about asking ChatGPT health questions? Results from a randomised-controlled trial.NPJ digital medicine · 2025Article
- Exploring the potential of AI-powered applications for clinical decision-making in gynecologic oncology.International journal of gynaecology and obstetrics: the official organ of the International Federation of Gynaecology and Obstetrics · 2025Article
- Evolving Health Information-Seeking Behavior in the Context of Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Alexa: Interview Study Using the Think-Aloud Protocol.Journal of medical Internet research · 2025Article
- The Use of ChatGPT-4.0 to Simplify Breast Pathology Reports: A Study on Readability and Accuracy.Annals of surgical oncology · 2025Article
- GPT-4 as a source of patient information for cervical disc arthroplasty: a comparative analysis against Google web search.Journal of spine surgery (Hong Kong) · 2025Article
- Dental Age Estimation from Panoramic Radiographs: A Comparison of Orthodontist and ChatGPT-4 Evaluations Using the London Atlas, Nolla, and Haavikko Methods.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundMost health information does not meet the health literacy needs of our communities. Writing health information in plain language is time-consuming but the release of tools like ChatGPT may make it easier to produce reliable plain language health information.
objectiveTo investigate the capacity for ChatGPT to produce plain language versions of health texts.
designObservational study of 26 health texts from reputable websites.
methodsChatGPT was prompted to 'rewrite the text for people with low literacy'. Researchers captured three revised versions of each original text. MAIN MEASURES: Objective health literacy assessment, including Simple Measure of Gobbledygook (SMOG), proportion of the text that contains complex language (%), number of instances of passive voice and subjective ratings of key messages retained (%). KEY
resultsOn average, original texts were written at grade 12.8 (SD = 2.2) and revised to grade 11.0 (SD = 1.2), p < 0.001. Original texts were on average 22.8% complex (SD = 7.5%) compared to 14.4% (SD = 5.6%) in revised texts, p < 0.001. Original texts had on average 4.7 instances (SD = 3.2) of passive text compared to 1.7 (SD = 1.2) in revised texts, p < 0.001. On average 80% of key messages were retained (SD = 15.0). The more complex original texts showed more improvements than less complex original texts. For example, when original texts were ≥ grade 13, revised versions improved by an average 3.3 grades (SD = 2.2), p < 0.001. Simpler original texts (< grade 11) improved by an average 0.5 grades (SD = 1.4), p < 0.001.
conclusionsThis study used multiple objective assessments of health literacy to demonstrate that ChatGPT can simplify health information while retaining most key messages. However, the revised texts typically did not meet health literacy targets for grade reading score, and improvements were marginal for texts that were already relatively simple.
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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.