T.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention took a bold step in mid-August to rebuild trust in public health. CDC director Rochelle Walensky unequivocally acknowledged that her agency should have done a better job during the pandemic, rather than relying on rebranding and clever, pleasing advertising campaigns. He publicly promised to review the agency to act more quickly, communicate more clearly and, if possible, regain some of the trust that was lost among many Covid-weary Americans.
Health communication challenges are not just for the CDC. For public health and healthcare workers, the pandemic is being fought on many fronts. In addition to fighting deadly viruses, medical professionals and practitioners, public health officials, policy makers and researchers have had to deal with incomplete and rapidly changing knowledge. We needed to build trust within the community while communicating about the evolving issues.
The challenge doesn’t end with Covid-19.Many other illnesses, emergencies, and crises such as monkeypoxthe revival of polio, and the ongoing threat of climate change, gun violence, and racism are opportunities for health professionals to rise to communication challenges. Or stumble.
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Effectively address public health demands and engage the public. The success of leaders like Wallenski depends not only on what they do, but on what they say and how they say it. Restoring trust in an area as important as public health requires honest reflection first. What went wrong and what lessons can we learn from that experience? You can decide if tactics are necessary.
Warenski’s announcement addresses three areas for improving the response to the pandemic. It’s about understanding what happened, why it happened, and what needs to be done to prevent it from happening again.
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What happened: ‘For 75 years, CDC and Public Health have prepared for Covid-19,’ says Wallenski wrote in the email To all CDC staff, “And at our key moment, our performance has certainly not lived up to expectations.” The New York Times called her statement. ‘Thorough reprimand’ Disadvantages of agency.
Why it happened: Wallenski admits that the CDC is too closed, prioritizing releasable data over actionable data.
What the CDC does differently: “My goal is a new public health, action-oriented culture at the CDC that emphasizes accountability, collaboration, communication, and timeliness,” she said, improving public messaging and We acknowledged the importance of using plain language. easy to understand.
These steps are 101 of communication, but many public health leaders have failed to teach in the last few years. They used jargon, lectured, and speculated. They forget some basic rules about leadership and humility. In other words, it tells you not only what you know, but also what you don’t know. People trust leaders who are candid when things go wrong, acknowledge that they don’t have all the answers, and respect their people by communicating their thoughts well. requirement what they hear, not what they hear I want listen.
Public health officials also need to recognize and respect audience perspectives. One way he does this is by choosing a friendly spokesperson. As with many things in life, relationships are everything. Trust is typically built in peacetime and strengthened or eroded during crises. Health professionals need to be proactive and build trust up front.
Effective communication and messaging is only part of the solution. More than communication, past and future actions determine credibility. For individual leaders and organizations, building trust requires a renewed commitment to candor, clarity and coordination. This means listening more actively to better understand the people we serve, and translating this understanding into trustworthy actions.
There are no shortcuts to building trust, and many obstacles are out of your control. But, as Wallenski showed, progress begins by identifying past mistakes, understanding what people need, communicating clearly and regularly, and being willing to make real change. increase.
Mark R. Miller is Vice President of Communications and Julia Haskins is a Communications Associate at the de Beaumont Foundation. They and three of her colleagues are editors of Talking Health: A New Way to Communicate About Public Health (Oxford University Press, August 2022).
