vital-scans open quality ledger

nih.gov: Readability — week 2026-W40

Plain-language metrics for the main content of each scanned page (navigation, header, and footer excluded). Download CSV.

What these mean

Words per page
Main-content word count. Median 729
Reading ease (Flesch)
0–100; higher is easier. ~60+ is plain language; below ~30 is very hard. Median 47.5
Grade level (Flesch-Kincaid)
US school grade needed to read it; aim for ~8 or lower for the public. Median 12.3
Scored
A reading grade is only meaningful on running prose, so we score a page only when it has enough of it. Pages that are mostly links or cards (too little text) or mostly tables and data (not prose) are left unscored — a grade there would be misleading, no matter how many words they contain. 5 of 5 scored

Heuristics for triage and trends, not authoritative linguistics. They flag pages worth a human plain-language review.

Per-page readability

Readability per scanned page (2026-W40). — click a column heading to sort
/news-events/news-releases/nih-begins-large-hiv-treatment-study-pregnant-women133931.716.2yes
/news-events/nih-research-matters/asthma-cases-dropped-when-air-pollution-declined62654.210.9yes
/news-events/nih-research-matters/depression-may-stall-development-new-neurons76247.511yes
/institutes-nih/nih-office-director/office-communications-public-liaison/freedom-information-act-office/fees30550.315.7yes
/news-events/nih-research-matters/brain-cells-underlying-stuttering-identified-mice72944.812.3yes

Unexplained acronyms

Acronyms used without an on-page expansion (e.g. "Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)"), by pages affected. Download: CSV · JSON.

Possible misspellings

Main-content words not found in the dictionary or the project allowlist, by pages affected. Government and medical jargon may be false positives — add real terms to config/spelling-allowlist.txt. Download: CSV · JSON.