Supporting Public Health Communicators through Plain Language Resources

Background:

The Public Health Communications Collaborative (PHCC) creates and amplifies tools, resources, and learning opportunities for communicators designed to address public health issues, build public confidence, and identify and counter misinformation. Initially formed in August 2020 to provide science-based messaging resources on the COVID-19 pandemic, today PHCC supports communicators on a range of timely issues across the field of public health—working toward a world where everyone has access to the information they need to make good decisions about their health.

Program background:

As a collaborative, PHCC draws on the expertise, insights, and on-the-ground knowledge of its partner network and public health leaders. Four managing partners steer the collaborative: CDC Foundation, the de Beaumont Foundation, The Kresge Foundation, and Trust for America’s Health. With tens of thousands of visits to its website each month and over 35,000 people collectively registering for webinars to date, PHCC has become a go-to hub for public health communicators across the country. Today, PHCC resources are guided by feedback from the field to address the evolving needs of public health communicators, such as answers to tough questions, misinformation alerts, shareable graphics and social messaging, and other communication tools. These tools support public health communicators as timely, clear, credible, and effective messengers.

Rhea Farberman from PHCC and Trust for America’s Health will begin our panel by framing the collaborative approach of PHCC and highlighting the need for a plain language resource in the field today.

Evaluation Methods and Results:

PHCC resources are guided by quarterly feedback surveys from the field to address the evolving needs of public health communicators – such as answers to tough questions, misinformation alerts, shareable graphics and social messaging, and other communication tools.

Conclusions:

Effective public health communications are critical to help people stay informed and make decisions about their health. When accurate information about public health is hard to find or understand, it’s easier for false and misleading information to circulate. This panel will outline the “why” we need plain language in public health communications.

Implications for research and/or practice:

As more public health communicators continue to learn and implement the practice of using plain language in public health communications, we can expect:

• Increased positioning of health departments as trusted sources for health information.
• Increased health literacy as people are more likely to find and understand public health information and guidance easily.
• Challenges to misinformation on public health topics, with people better equipped to identify misinformation and find credible sources of information.
• More conversations and action toward health literacy as already demonstrated through interactions with the guide on social media. Across the field of public health, we expect this resource to inspire continuous conversation on the value and importance of plain language for overall community health and how it can be implemented daily.