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Preparing and presenting effective research posters

Health Services Research, Feb, 2007 by Jane E. Miller

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Telling a Simple, Clear Story

Write so your audience can understand why your work is of interest to them, providing them with a clear take-home message that they can grasp in the few minutes they will spend at your poster. Experts in communications and poster design recommend planning your poster around two to three key points that you want your audience to walk away with, then designing the title, charts, and text to emphasize those points (Briscoe 1996; Nelson et al. 2002; Beilenson 2004). Start by introducing the two or three key questions you have decided will be the focus of your poster, and then provide a brief overview of data and methods before presenting the evidence to answer those questions. Close with a summary of your findings and their implications for research and policy.

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A 2001 survey of government policymakers showed that they prefer summaries of research to be written so they can immediately see how the findings relate to issues currently facing their constituencies, without wading through a formal research paper (Sorian and Baugh 2002). Complaints that surfaced about many research reports included that they were "too long, dense, or detailed," or "too theoretical, technical, or jargony." On average, respondents said they read only about a quarter of the research material they receive for detail, skim about half of it, and never get to the rest.

To ensure that your poster is one viewers will read, understand, and remember, present your analyses to match the issues and questions of concern to them, rather than making readers translate your statistical results to fit their interests (DiFranza and the Staff of the Advocacy Institute 1996; Nelson et al. 2002). Often, their questions will affect how you code your data, specify your model, or design your intervention and evaluation, so plan ahead by familiarizing yourself with your audience's interests and likely applications of your study findings. In an academic journal article, you might report parameter estimates and standard errors for each independent variable in your regression model. In the poster version, emphasize findings for specific program design features, demographic, or geographic groups, using straightforward means of presenting effect size and statistical significance; see "Describing Numeric Patterns and Contrasts" and "Presenting Statistical Test Results" below.

The following sections offer guidelines on how to present statistical findings on posters, accompanied by examples of "poor" and "better" descriptions--samples of ineffective writing annotated to point out weaknesses, accompanied by concrete examples and explanations of improved presentation. These ideas are illustrated with results from a multilevel analysis of disenrollment from the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP; Phillips et al. 2004). I chose that paper to show how to prepare a poster about a sophisticated quantitative analysis of a topic of interest to HSR readers, and because I was a collaborator in that study, which was presented in the three formats compared here--as a paper, a speech, and a poster.

Health Care Industry

Preparing and presenting effective research posters

Health Services Research, Feb, 2007 by Jane E. Miller

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