Health Literacy Initiative's PSA: Cover Your Nose and Mouth Posters in 27 Languages to Use and Share

Cover Your Nose and Mouth: COVID-19 Public Service Announcement

The Intellus Health Literacy Initiative developed and tested a number of posters to remind people to cover their nose and mouth while wearing their mask. The best two are posted here for teachers, store owners – anyone who would like to print and use them. Scroll down to download posters in 27 languages to share through email and social media.

This project evolved as Health Literacy Initiative (HLI) volunteers explored ways we might help people stay safe during the pandemic.  Healthcare professionals know masks can help stop the spread of COVID-19, but they must be worn correctly, covering both a person’s mouth and nose. Unfortunately, some people do not wear masks correctly.   

We saw hand-made signs at local stores and reviewed research that showed official communications about masks were often complicated. We interviewed people at the front lines:

People can't seem to resist pulling their mask off to talk with me at my register 

I write 'tell me if my nose shows!' on the outside of my mask, because that's a gentle reminder to my patients to check their noses, too.

Using principles of clear communication, we developed ideas for better signs about correct mask wearing. These included:

     -     Tell people why

     -     Tell people what they should do, rather than what they shouldn’t

     -     Use clear simple language

Chillibreeze  donated their creative services to the project and the results were then tested more formally with an online panel through Sommer Consulting and Rare Patient Voice. Translations from English provided by G3 Translate. Our thanks to everyone who helped make this project a success!

Translated posters:

Arabic - Yellow or Monkey
Bulgarian - Yellow or Monkey
Chinese - Yellow or Monkey
Chinese - Traditional (Hong Kong) - Yellow or Monkey
Chinese - Traditional (Taiwan) - Yellow or Monkey
Dutch (Netherlands) - Yellow or Monkey
English - Yellow or Monkey
French - Yellow or Monkey
German - Yellow or Monkey
Greek - Yellow or Monkey
Gujarati - Yellow or Monkey
Hebrew - Yellow or Monkey
Hindi - Yellow or Monkey
Italian - Yellow or Monkey
Japanese - Yellow or Monkey
Korean - Yellow or Monkey
Macedonian - Yellow or Monkey
Malay - Yellow or Monkey
Marathi - Yellow or Monkey
Portuguese - Yellow or Monkey
Russian - Yellow or Monkey
Spanish - Yellow or Monkey
Swahili - Yellow or Monkey
Tagalog - Yellow or Monkey
Thai - Yellow or Monkey
Ukrainian - Yellow or Monkey
Vietnamese - Yellow or Monkey

About the Intellus Health Literacy Initiative

The pharmaceutical industry is not known for information that is easy to understand. Much of this is due to federal regulations, but what if the industry could do a better job? The Intellus Health Literacy Initiative is a group of pharmaceutical market researchers whose goal is to help the industry improve its communications in order to improve people's health. For more information, see www.intellus.org/Member-Resources/Health-Literacy-Initiative.