Health Literacy Month: Making MS information accessible to everyone

Health information should be something everyone can find, understand and use to make informed decisions about their health. But for many people, this isn’t the reality. 

Research from the Patient Information Forum (PIF) highlights the challenges people can face when trying to find and understand trusted health information. People with lower levels of health literacy may face additional barriers to accessing, understanding and using information to support their health and wellbeing. 

This Health Literacy Month, we’re thinking about what we can do to make sure information about multiple sclerosis (MS) and lifestyle is as accessible as possible. 

For us, that means recognising that it’s our responsibility to make information easy to find, understand and use – not expecting people to navigate complex language, overwhelming amounts of information or a digital landscape where it can be difficult to know what to trust. 

That’s why we’re committed to putting our most important MS and lifestyle resources through our PIF TICK certified process. 

The PIF TICK is the UK’s only assessed quality mark for print and online health information. It helps people identify health information that has been produced using a trusted, evidence-based process, including involving people who use the information in its development. And although PIF TICK is recognised in the UK, anyone across the globe can rely on it as a standard of quality information. 

By putting our key resources through this process, we’re taking an important step towards making our information more accessible, trustworthy and useful. 

For people living with MS, having clear and reliable information can help them make informed lifestyle choices, understand and manage their condition, and ultimately support them to live as well as possible with MS. 

Health literacy isn’t about ‘dumbing down’ information. It’s about removing unnecessary barriers, so that more people have a fair opportunity to understand information and use it in ways that work for them. 

This Health Literacy Month, that’s our commitment: to make our information easier to find, easier to understand and easier to use – so that more people living with MS can make informed lifestyle choices and live as well as possible.