Public Oncological Appendix: A Readability-Based Strategy by Highschool Students to Reduce Cancer Inequities

By: Jimin Yoo, Vista Ridge High School

Cancer treatment access is shaped by deep socioeconomic and informational gaps. While modern treatments have improved, mortality rates remain uneven because many communities—especially medically underserved areas (MUAs)—face delayed diagnosis and limited resources. Early detection and shorter time to treatment are crucial, yet the information available online is often written at advanced reading levels, filled with medical and policy jargon that many patients cannot easily understand. Therefore, one proposal to address this barrier by high school students is the Public Oncological Appendix. Public Oncological Appendix is a web-based database that offers up-to-date cancer related information: treatment, clinic, and federal-state insurance policy. Under supervision of medical authority and high school faculty, students convert medical and policy language into plain language, aiming to simplify advanced high school to college level writing into public-friendly language. The objective is to make already available online information into easily readable yet precise forms. The intended goal is to better inform the audience who lack health literacy. Given the multilateral nature of U.S. healthcare policy, the solution aims to begin by establishing a local database which then can be scaled into state or national level through inter-school and inter-agency collaboration.