Developing Health and Family Planning Print Materials for Low-Literate Audiences: A Guide

Zimmerman, Margot, Nancy Newton, Lena Frumin, and Scott Wittet. Developing Health and Family Planning Print Materials for Low-Literate Audiences: A Guide. (Seattle, WA: Program for Appropriate Technology in Health [PATH], 1996).

This manual is specifically geared towards organizations looking to create their own print materials. The manual outlines the techniques used by an organization called Program for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH) to communicate to illiterate and low-literate people. The manual states that PATH’s techniques have been used in over 40 countries; however, they do not provide data on the efficacy of their own material. This manual would be most useful to organizations who are developing health education materials for specific populations. I had hoped that this manual would contain more specifics on how different cultures perceive images. However, this manual outlines ways define the target audience, methods for gathering data from target audiences (including types of research), how to tailor information to specific stages of behavior adoption, and design considerations. While the content appears credible, and PATH is an established nonprofit organization, this source doesn’t specific data that could be included in my research project. It isn’t clear if the suggestions and tips contained in this manual have been peer-reviewed, subject to research, or follow an established standard. However, the manual does provide a 20-item bibliography that may be provide additional resources for my research topic. While the manual is not an appropriate source for a research paper, the bibliography may prove invaluable when searching for more information on the topic of developing culturally relevant visuals.