From the Web sites of the American Heart Association, American Cancer Society, American Lung Association, American Diabetes Association, and American Stroke Association we randomly gathered 100 consumer-health-information articles.
We assessed each article with 3 readability-assessment tools: SMOG (Simple Measure of Gobbledygook), Gunning FOG (Frequency of Gobbledygook), and Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level. We also categorized the articles per the USDHHS readability categories: easy to read (below 6th-grade level), average difficulty (7th to 9th grade level), and difficult (above 9th-grade level).