Communicating Failure to Policymakers

Background:

In CDC’s 2019 Antibiotic Resistance (AR) Threats Report, CDC showed that prevention moves the needle on AR, which causes at least 2.8 million infections and 35,000 deaths each year. From 2012-2017, resistant infections decreased by 18% overall and nearly 30% in hospitals, largely due to significant investments in U.S. prevention efforts like improving infection prevention and control as well as antibiotic use. However, after more than two years responding to COVID-19, the threat of AR in the U.S. became worse—impacting humans, animals, and the environment. CDC’s AR/COVID-19 Impact Report showcased how investments are needed to continue to address antimicrobial resistance while simultaneously responding to COVID-19 and other health threats.

Program background:

CDC’s AR Coordination & Strategy Unit (ARX) used the 2022 AR/COVID-19 Impact Report to highlight the progress lost due to the pandemic. Only 4 months prior to the pandemic, CDC celebrated significant progress on AR, especially in healthcare. As the pandemic begin to wane, CDC released a compact overview of how COVID-19 had impacted the agency’s progress on its 5 core actions to combat AR: Tracking and Data; Preventing Infections; Antibiotic/Antifungal Use; Environment and Sanitation; and Vaccines, Therapeutics, and Diagnostics. As an agency priority, ARX is accountable for proving the value of Congressional investments to fight this threat. ARX worked to ensure policymaker were aware of how the pandemic threatened continued efforts was critical. The report had to be concise, interesting to media, and comparable to previous reports, with clear calls to action for policy audiences. ARX used plain language and data visualization best practices to quickly communicate the findings, with high impact. Communicating the data within such small physical space and on such complicated topics proved to be difficult but, with 5 other divisions, the findings were used to support the proposed increase in the President's budget for increased AR funding to grow public health capacity to strengthen efforts in reducing the spread of resistant pathogens across U.S. communities.

Evaluation Methods and Results:

ARX leveraged many channels to promote the report’s findings to partners, including a press release and media pitching, social media, Congressional outreach, partner engagement, and other general marketing. Promotion of the AR/COVID-19 Impact Report produced more than 130 news stories and resulted in several Congressional briefing requests. The report was downloaded 3,618 times in 4 weeks with more than 23,835K page views, and 53% of views coming from mobile. The report saw more than 1.1 million social media impressions, including exceeding agency engagement average on Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat. The report continues to be a critical education tool when discussing public health needs with policymakers and partners.

Conclusions:

The report allows CDC to communicate to policymakers about its lost progress on AR due to the pandemic effects, resulting in support.

Implications for research and/or practice:

Similarly large programs may benefit from reports or approaches like this, especially as COVID-19 continues to be prominently featured in the news and other channels for the policy audience.