Health Literacy Champions Lenoard and Cecilia Doak

The field of health literacy started with a love story. When Cecilia Conrath and Leonard Doak married in 1973, she was a commissioned officer in the U.S. Public Health Service, developing and leading continuing education for physicians and allied health professionals. He was an engineer who volunteered as a literacy tutor for adults.

They described, in a 2009 Literacy Out Loud Podcast with Helen Osborne, how a conversation early in their marriage about the difficulty Len's students had understanding medical advice led to their groundbreaking work. In the past 30 years, they have presented over 200 workshops around the world and trained more than 11,000 healthcare professionals on how to communicate in a way that is easy to understand and motivates patients to make informed decisions about their health.

Len and Ceci Doak

Together they coauthored with Jane Root the award-winning Teaching Patients with Low Literacy Skills, which is still considered "the bible," as well as numerous journal articles. The second edition of their book is available for free at Harvard University School of Public Health's Health Literacy Studies website.

Leonard Doak died July 15 in Palm Desert, California. I never had the opportunity to meet Len. I only knew him and Cecilia, or Ceci, by their reputation as the "grandparents" of healthy literacy and for their tremendous contribution to the field. Over the past week, the health literacy community remembered Len with fondness and respect. Among the many beautiful tributes, were the accolades "hero," "warm and humble," "giant in the field," "enthusiastic and generous colleague," "tireless worker for social justice."

My sincere condolences to Cecilia and their family and to his friends and colleagues.

Photo credit: From www.literacyoutloud.com, host and author Helen Osborne.