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Suggested citation: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Effective Health Communication Within the Current Information Environment and the Role of the Federal Government: Proceedings of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/27210.

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PLANNING COMMITTEE FOR EFFECTIVE HEALTH COMMUNICATION WITHIN THE CURRENT INFORMATION ENVIRONMENT AND THE ROLE OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

WILLIAM K. HALLMAN (Chair), Professor and Chair, Department of Human Ecology, Rutgers University

ELLA M. GREENE-MOTON, Administrator of the Community Based Organization Partners and Community Ethics Review Board, Flint, Michigan

HILARY KARASZ, Deputy Communications Director, Public Health — Seattle & King County

MAIMUNA (MAIA) MAJUMDER, Assistant Professor, Computational Health Informatics Program, Boston Children’s Hospital, and Department of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School

DONALD P. MOYNIHAN, McCourt Chair of Public Policy, Georgetown University

SHARON NATANBLUT, Principal, Natanblut Strategies

JEFF NIEDERDEPPE, Senior Associate Dean, Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy, Cornell University

KATHERINE OGNYANOVA, Associate Professor, School of Communication & Information, Rutgers University

AMELIE RAMIREZ,¹ Director, Salud America!, and Professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio

Staff

HOLLY RHODES, Study Director, Board on Science Education

TIFFANY TAYLOR, Program Officer, Board on Science Education

LAUREN RYAN, Senior Program Assistant, Board on Science Education

HEIDI SCHWEINGRUBER, Director, Board on Science Education

Consultants

STACEY BAKER, S. L. Baker, LLC

Reviewers

This Proceedings of a Workshop was reviewed in draft form by individuals chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise. The purpose of this independent review is to provide candid and critical comments that will assist the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in making each published proceedings as sound as possible and to ensure that it meets the institutional standards for quality, objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the charge. The review comments and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the process.

We thank the following individual for his review of this proceedings:

We also thank staff member ADRIAN WOLFBERG for reading and providing helpful comments on this manuscript.

Although the reviewer listed above provided many constructive comments and suggestions, he was not asked to endorse the content of the proceedings, nor did he see the final draft before its release. The review of this proceedings was overseen by STEPHEN H. LINDER, University of Texas School of Public Health. He was responsible for making certain that an independent examination of this proceedings was carried out in accordance with standards of the National Academies and that all review comments were carefully considered. Responsibility for the final content rests entirely with the rapporteurs and the National Academies.

Acknowledgments

This proceedings has been prepared by the workshop rapporteurs as a factual summary of what occurred at the workshop. The planning committee’s role was limited to planning and convening the workshop. The views contained in the proceedings are those of individual workshop participants and do not necessarily represent the views of all workshop participants, the planning committee, or the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

We wish to express our gratitude to the members of the planning committee for their expertise and the time that they volunteered to create a full and engaging agenda. We also thank the speakers and panelists for their insights and contributions to the rich discussions at the workshop.

We want to thank our colleagues working in federal health communication who were kind enough to share their own thoughts with members of the planning committee and staff to inform the development of the agenda—Alberta Becenti, Wen-Ying Sylvia Chou, A. Rani Elwy, Stefanie Friedhoff, Emily Haas, Jessica Kolis, Elizabeth Maguire, and Christopher Voegeli. We especially want to thank Kyla Fullenwider and Carolyn Greene, who were generous with their time and insights over the course of the planning process. We also want to thank the participants at this workshop, most of whom were public servants, not only for attending and enriching the discussions, but also for their service to our nation to improve the health and well-being of all Americans.

Finally, we wish to thank the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which provided the support to make this event possible.

Contents

Acronyms and Abbreviations

1 Introduction

GOALS AND ROLES OF FEDERAL HEALTH COMMUNICATION

HEALTH COMMUNICATION: CONNECTING SCIENCE, PRACTICE, AND POLICY

INCREASING CREDIBILITY: AN ALTERNATIVE TO “FOLLOW THE SCIENCE”

TIMELINESS AND TRANSPARENCY: LESSONS LEARNED FROM COVID-19 REAL-TIME REPORTING

ETHICAL HEALTH COMMUNICATION IN A DEMOCRACY: INSIGHTS FROM EUROPE

THE ROLE OF EMOTION

2 Key Cross-Cutting Challenges and the Implications for Federal Health Communication

THE CHALLENGE OF DECLINING TRUST IN INSTITUTIONS

CHALLENGES OF THE COMPLEX HEALTH COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT

POLITICAL POLARIZATION OF HEALTH AND SCIENCE

THE CHALLENGE OF EQUITY IN HEALTH AND HEALTH COMMUNICATION

DISCUSSION

3 Capacity: Listening to and Engaging Communities

PRINCIPLES FOR UNDERSTANDING COMMUNITIES

COMMUNITY-ACADEMIC PARTNERSHIPS: LESSONS FROM FLINT, MICHIGAN

CENTERING COMMUNITY: LESSONS FROM PUBLIC HEALTH — SEATTLE & KING COUNTY

FEDERALLY QUALIFIED COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTERS

STRATEGIES FOR VIRTUAL STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT

DISCUSSION

INSIGHTS FROM COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT BREAKOUT SESSIONS

4 Capacity: Digital Data and Information Systems

DATA INFRASTRUCTURE FOR UNDERSTANDING THE HEALTH COMMUNICATION ECOSYSTEM

MEDIA CLOUD

ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS

DISCUSSION

INSIGHTS FROM DATA AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS BREAKOUT SESSIONS

5 Capacity: Expertise and Human Capital

EXPERTISE AND CAPACITIES NEEDED FOR EVERYDAY HEALTH COMMUNICATION

CAPACITIES NEEDED FOR EFFECTIVE HEALTH COMMUNICATION IN EMERGENCIES

ENGAGING AND HONORING THE EXPERTISE OF NATIVE POPULATIONS

CAPACITIES FOR EFFECTIVELY ENGAGING THE NEWS MEDIA

EXPERTISE AND HUMAN CAPITAL NEEDED FOR EFFECTIVE LARGE-SCALE HEALTH COMMUNICATION CAMPAIGNS

DISCUSSION

INSIGHTS FROM COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT BREAKOUT SESSIONS

6 Capacity: Organizational Capacities for Agility

APPROACHES FOR INCREASING AGILITY IN GOVERNMENT

REFLECTIONS AND INSIGHTS FROM THE RESPONSE PANEL

DISCUSSION

7 Capacity: Building Relationships to Enhance Effective Health Communication

RELATIONSHIP BUILDING DURING COVID-19 IN NYC

CO-CREATION OF HEALTH COMMUNICATION AT THE LOCAL LEVEL

CULTURAL HUMILITY: LESSONS FROM LEADERSHIP DURING SANDY HOOK; FLINT, MICHIGAN; AND ZIKA

EVIDENCE-BASED COLLABORATION

DISCUSSION

8 Key Themes and Final Reflections

A PARADIGM SHIFT IN FEDERAL HEALTH COMMUNICATION

LISTENING TO, COLLABORATING WITH, AND INVESTING IN COMMUNITIES

LEVERAGING SOCIAL SCIENCE AND HEALTH COMMUNICATION EXPERTISE

COORDINATION AND PARTNERSHIPS TO EXPAND CAPACITY

MECHANISMS TO SUPPORT COLLABORATION AND LEARNING

References

Appendix A Workshop Agenda

Appendix B Participants and Committee Biographies

Appendix C Insights from Community Engagement Breakout Sessions

Appendix D Insights from Data and Information Systems Breakout Sessions

Appendix E Insights from Expertise and Human Capital for Research and Evaluation in Federal Health Communication Breakout Sessions

Boxes, Figures, and Tables

BOXES

1-1 Statement of Task

1-2 Roles of Federal Agencies with Respect to Health Information

2-1 Possible Approaches for Increasing Public Confidence and Trust in Federal Health Communicators

2-2 Potential Communication Strategies and Improvements for Communication Instructure

2-3 Suggestions for Avoiding the Exacerbation of Political Polarization

2-4 Examples of Evidence-Based Practices to Improve Health Communication and Address Communication Inequalities

3-1 Key Factors for Understanding Communities

3-2 Practical Considerations for Virtual Multistakeholder Engagement

3-3 Panelist Ideas for Approaching Communities to Engender Trust

4-1 Data Availability and Needs for Understanding the Health Communication Ecosystem

4-2 Unaddressed Ethical Issues Associated with Technologies that Use Health Data

5-1 Capacity-Building Domains

5-2 Ideas for Required Capacities for Effective Health Communication in a Federal Emergency

5-3 Important Capacities for Successful Collaboration between Government and Native Communities

6-1 Attributes that Influence Trust in Government

6-2 Principles of Agile Government

7-1 Lessons Learned about Relationship Building to Support Public Health Communication

FIGURES

1-1 The science of health communication

2-1 Changes in confidence in political and nonpolitical institutions between 1972–1979 and 2010–2021

2-2 Confidence in science, medicine, and higher education over time

2-3 Partisan confidence in science over time

3-1 Community Informs All Stages model

3-2 ExpertLens: An online modified-Delphi approach

5-1 Competencies of health communication specialists

5-2 TV news tops media sources for COVID-19 vaccine information, friends and family top personal sources of information

5-3 Public trust in sources of health information among U.S. adults, by degree of trust, 2022

6-1 Integrated framework for agile government

TABLES

1-1 A Template for Increasing Credibility

2-1 Potential Solutions for Restoring Trust in Government

Acronyms and Abbreviations