Lay recognition and understanding of common medical terminology: personal profile analysis

Although good health literacy has been shown to be a strong predictor of life quality and longevity, communication between clinicians and patients can still be challenging for both parties. Patients may struggle with complex medical jargon used during visits and in health records, while clinicians may find it difficult to assess laypeople's level of understanding (or whether they grasp medical terms fully or only partially). To address this challenge, we present data from a new survey of 252 participants assessing their recognition and understanding of 1,000 medical terms. We detail the study's design and execution, along with key patterns in understanding observed in the data. We also analyse social profile information and explore how it relates to medical term awareness. Age and education were the most influential predictors of health literacy. We found no significant gender differences or disparities between self-reported native and non-native English speakers. However, being born in a predominantly English-speaking country was associated with higher health literacy. Our contribution enables useful benchmarking of medical term understanding and fine-tuning of Large Language Model (LLM) solutions for personalized health communication¹,.