Before starting my communications internship, my understanding of public health was very limited. Yet over these past few weeks, I witnessed how vastly the public health field connects to the workforce, legislation, urban environments, and state funding. And what bridges them all together are the strategic communication tools.
When I was assigned to plan potential speakers for future webinars, I started searching for health writers who advocated for evidence-based public health research. Following my submission of potential speakers, I was then assigned to find individual writers who were skeptical of today’s public health institutions. Gradually, while working at the Public Health Communications Collaborative, I learned how the PHCC team really values the public’s feelings about certain mandates and their lived experiences. Therefore, to build trust between public health professionals and the general public, we must create spaces to listen and learn from where people’s skepticism and anxieties can arise.
In a recent coffee chat with a staff member who had worked in the public health field across many different roles, the first thing they asked me to do was to start regularly watching news channels that were against my political views. I was at first surprised to hear this recommendation. However, in today’s growing polarization, I now believe this action is a must for everyone.
Right now, in the public health world, many members of the public hold different opinions about statements coming from health officials and scientists. Increasingly, the messaging in public health reports has become politicized. Some individuals choose to embrace the health recommendations, while others choose not to follow them. Such division then causes misinformation to rise and spread in different news outlets.
Often, across different local health departments in the United States, there is only one designated Public Health Communicator. Their role requires them to write to the local community about health alerts and to break down scientific data. Tension then arises in the rise of misinformation about different outbreaks or diseases. This can then lead to burnout among individual communicators in health departments who have to respond to false information circulating among the local public. This is why organizations like Public Health Communications Collaborative (PHCC) are needed in today’s workforce. Especially when health communicators face misinformation that erodes trust in science and necessary treatment.
I have thus learned that to build credibility in our future careers, we need to start by listening to others and hearing why someone might not agree with our beliefs. By initiating conversations with others, we open up space to learn from ourselves and others. In one instance, we can understand why an individual decided not to follow a certain health recommendation due to a loss of trust in public health institutions.
Communication should not be about disproving someone’s opinion by just restating the facts. Rather, there needs to be room for empathy, to start a conversation, and hear their points of view. By bringing compassion into our dialogues with others, we, as communicators, are further bridging today’s polarization and building our trust in humanity.