Building a healthier world starts with how we communicate the ideas of public health. When we speak, does the public listen? Or do we sometimes communicate in ways that can cause the public to tune us out? We aspire to moral clarity in what we say and do. But moral clarity can tip into scolding or even, at times, moral grandstanding. We are in a moment, informed by the lessons of the 2024 election, when it seems appropriate to take an honest look at how we communicate a progressive vision for a healthier world, how our communication style can best serve our mission, and how it may, at times, poorly support our capacity to create a big-tent movement for health.
This Thinking Public Health session will hold space to discuss the utility of the symbols and statements we embrace in our engagement with the public and whether there is reason to rethink some aspects of how we talk about health and the forces that shape it, to ensure we can most effectively create a healthier world in this moment. This following four readings might be helpful to ground the discussion.
- “The Power of the Powerless,” Vaclav Havel.
- “In COVID-19 Health Messaging, Loss Framing Increases Anxiety with Little-to-No Concomitant Benefits: Experimental Evidence from 84 Countries,” Affective Science.
- “Resisting the Allure of Moral Grandstanding,” Sandro Galea.
- “Enough with the Land Acknowledgements,” Kathleen DuVal, guest essay, The New York Times.