Communicating to Advance the Public's Health Workshop Summary (2015) / Chapter Skim
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5 Effective Messaging Strategies: A Review of the Evidence
5 Effective Messaging Strategies: A Review of the Evidence
Pages 33-44
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From page 33... ...
The lack of a strong evidence base can be attributed in part to the limited funding available for research on population-based health interventions and also to the difficulty of determining causality in multi-faceted health and communication campaigns. During the third panel session, Sarah Gollust, an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota's School of Public Health, and Jeff Niederdeppe, an associate professor at Cornell University's Department of Communication, shared findings from the latest research, funded primarily by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, on the impact of different messages about health inequalities and the social determinants of health.
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From page 34... ...
. People who viewed individual behavior as the sole determinant of health outcomes were much less likely than other respondents to support public policy options addressing the social determinants of health.
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Others seek to increase concern about disparities and to build support for action to address them. Some public health messages promote the belief that societal forces contribute to poor health and health disparities, some seek to build support for policies addressing social factors, and some seek to mobilize people to advocate for social change.
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The major lesson learned was that in the absence of information explaining how social determinants create disparities, people form opinions based on their biases. They may be suspicious of data on the topic or attempt to refute the statistics.
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For example, despite the abundance of evidence on disparities in obesity, the researchers found that none of the of oral testimony, written reports, fact sheets, bills, or news articles discussed by the Minnesota legislature over 5 years of discussion on this issue actually cited this evidence to support government action on disparities in obesity. Linking Population Health Messages to Important Societal Values Population health messages that reflect important societal values may be more persuasive than messages that do not, Gollust said.
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Additional research is needed to identify effective messaging strategies for linking population health objectives with important American values. Messages that relate population health goals to the values of fairness, equal opportunity, and economic security may generate support for public policy interventions, Gollust said.
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again.'" Because the news media has a limited capacity to deliver population health messages, further research is needed to identify effective messengers outside traditional media outlets, Gollust said. Messages are most likely to be persuasive when the audience perceives the source to be credible; therefore, she suggested, public health professionals should conduct research to identify which potential sources are perceived as most credible.
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DISCUSSION Following the presentation, panelists responded to questions about effective messages and strategies for advancing population health. Michael Mangianello, founding partner of HCM Strategists, asked whether a single event could prompt policy change to improve population health to the same extent that National Coming Out Day changed the policy environment for the gay rights movement.
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Sanne Magnan of the Institute for Clinical Systems Improvement asked for suggestions for how to anticipate unintended consequences without conducting formal research and how to engage audiences in discussions about health care costs. Gollust said that results from past experience may help health communications professionals recognize the potential for unintended consequences, but empirical research is probably the best source of guidance.
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Paula Lantz of the Milken Institute School of Public Health, The George Washington University, commented that policy change tends to occur when policy makers and the public view affected populations as deserving. For example, policy makers typically view women as a deserving population in the context of policies related to breast cancer prevention.
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Reporters may be reluctant to use population health terminology because they expect a negative response among readers, but research findings suggest that a change in journalists' perspectives may be coming. It is important to use the language of population health and to discuss social determinants, Gold said, in order to help change public perceptions and increase support for investment in population health initiatives.
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