by Eric Frohmberg

Audience Identification
• Approximately 50% of U.S. adults read at or
below 8 th grade level.
• Reading level decreases with increasing poverty,
age, illness, and stress.
• In 1994, 80% of health care materials distributed are written
at a level that only 3% of adults can easily read.
Source: National Adult Literacy Survey of 1993
Riffenburgh and Associates 1994