Lessons Learned in Organizational Health Literacy: Reflecting on our work with CCDPH

For the past 3 years, we at the Clear Language Lab have had the privilege and pleasure of working in partnership with Cook County Department of Health on an organizational health literacy initiative.

In addition to launching a toolkit and web hub, we spent the last year co-creating a six-part webinar series with themed resources, tools, and guides available for anyone to use. 

During this partnership, we were able to learn some other things about organizational health that we want to share with you:

There are so many great people doing great work.

The highlight of this partnership was all the amazing people we met along the way. From community workers to public health staff, and everyone in between – there are people working hard to make sure everyone can find, understand, and use information to make the best health choices for themselves and others.

People want to do good work — but they often don’t have the tools.

People genuinely want to make information easier to access and understand. Often, they are missing the training, support, and resources to make that happen. Providing these resources can produce meaningful action.

Budgets help prioritize the cause.

For good work to get done, it needs to be properly funded. When health literacy is written into budgets, it signals that the organization takes it seriously. It also gives staff the resources and capacity they need to turn goals into action.

Diversity elevates everything. 

We noticed a trend that the successful programs we encountered had a mix of folks working together. We observed not only diversity in life experiences, but also diversity in the roles and groups that worked together. 

When organization staff, stakeholders, and community members work together, they bring their different experiences, expertise, and perspectives.

Public Health work is everything. 

Everything connects back to public health. It touches education, community engagement, government policy, technology, and so much more. It may look different in each space, but the goal remains the same: provide information in a way that is accessible, understandable, and usable to those that need it so they can live their healthiest lives.

Conclusion

It has been a pleasure to work with Cook County Department of Public Health on this project. We are grateful for all of the positive results from this partnership and look forward to seeing more great outcomes moving forward.