Alumni

Monica Sweeney, MD, MPH '92, Asst. Commissioner, Bureau of HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control, NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene

HIV/AIDS. Malnutrition. Obesity. An aging population. All of these issues and so many more require immediate and long-term public health planning. Yet the question arises: how effective have public health officials been in communicating the importance of lifestyle and policy changes necessary to address these challenges?

A panel of experts took a critical look at this topic at the Mailman School of Public Health’s 2010 Alumni Summit for Public Health Leadership. The panel featured Mailman School alumni who are at the forefront of communicating their messages through speech writing, film, blogging, and advertising marketing campaigns. More than 200 were in the audience.

Please view Making the Invisible Visible: A Panel Discussion on Effective Public Health Messaging

“Nothing About Us Without Us”

With the advent of social media, the landscape has rapidly changed in the past few years offering new ways to reach populations both small and large with public health messages. But whether talking about new media platforms or more traditional messaging campaigns, the panelists stressed that success can only come by listening to the needs of the targeted community.

Monica Sweeney, MD, MPH ’92, Assistant Commissioner for New York City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s Bureau of HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control, described the mantra of community groups that she has worked with, “Nothing About Us Without Us,” as being key to any public health campaign’s success. Dr. Sweeney exhorted the audience to involve people who know what’s going on in the local community as part of the planning process. To determine the best means for communication, public health practitioners need to conduct focus groups, listen to community members, and figure out what people are watching and reading.

Josh Ruxin, PhD, MPH '94, Director, Access Project and the Millennium Villages Project in Rwanda, Columbia University

Having a community’s priorities defined from afar was an area of concern for fellow panelist Josh Ruxin, PhD, MPH ’94, Director of the Access Project and the Millennium Villages Project in Rwanda. A prolific writer who blogs for The New York Times, the Huffington Post, and Forbes, Dr. Ruxin expressed concern that poorer countries’ public health spending is often directed by overseas funders who focus on HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, sometimes at the cost of less topical but equally urgent issues like malnutrition, heart disease, and immunization.

In the age of Twitter, Dr. Ruxin cautioned that public health messages are competing against each other now more than ever. And it’s not always the most important and accurate messages that manage to break through the clutter.  In an age of tightened budgets, Ruxin stressed that it is critical that officials think carefully about investing in the most effective interventions and messages.

Finding a Hook

Members of the panel, which was moderated by Sree Sreenivasan of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, were uniform in urging public health practitioners to find a hook that draws people in by making health issues relevant at the local level, and thereby inspiring communities to make lifestyle changes or support new policies.  

Dr. Sweeney recalled the struggle to find ways other than scare tactics to make condom use appealing to her constituencies. By tapping into ideas about romance, her department coined the slogan, “Protecting Your Partner is a Sign of Love” and used that to broadcast a more appealing message about safe sex.

Capturing the attention of a fickle public requires imagination and a fluency in the many different communications vehicles available today whether it be cell phones, Facebook, or classroom curriculums. The alumni panelists challenged the Mailman School to find ways to use these various outlets to tell the story of public health. Audience members also encouraged the School to develop a communications curriculum on this topic so that the next generation of alumni will be better equipped to spread the word on public health.

Making the Invisible Visible: A Panel Discussion on Effective Public Health Messaging

June 8, 2010

Moderator:

• Sree Sreenivasan, Professor and Dean of Student Affairs; Professor of Professional Practice, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism

Panelists:

• Julie Piotrowski, MPH '08, Speechwriter, Office of Public Health and Science, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
• Hannah Rosenzweig, MPH '05, Founder, Intention Media Inc.
• Josh Ruxin, PhD, MPH '94, Director, Access Project and the Millennium Villages Project in Rwanda, Columbia University's Earth Institute; and Assistant Clinical Professor of Public Health in the Department of Population and Family Health at the Mailman School
• Monica Sweeney, MD, MPH '92, Assistant Commissioner, Bureau of HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene