Strategic communication for public health in the 21st century

Workshop on Strategic Communication

The Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health – India Research Center organized a workshop titled ‘Strategic Communication for Public Health in the 21st Century‘ in Mumbai with Dr. K. Viswanath, Lee Kum Kee Professor of Health Communication at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. This workshop introduced participants to the concept of strategic communications and how it can be used to influence health behaviors, build public agenda and policy support for public health. Strategic communication is the purposeful use of a variety of evidence-based communication strategies to facilitate behavior change, implement public health programs and generate public support for policy and its implementation. Drawing on a long body of scientific work that systematically studied the impact of communications on audiences and how to draw on communication science to communicate effectively to achieve policy and programmatic outcomes, participants gained an understanding of the importance of strategic communications and how it can be used to protect the public’s health.

Additionally, the workshop discussed the risks associated with the public’s near-instant access to unfiltered information, particularly concerning misinformation and disinformation, and ways to address them.

Lastly, the workshop also provided participants with an understanding of the importance of risk communication and how it can be used to inform stakeholders and help them make decisions, ultimately easing public anxiety and minimizing the possibility of poor outcomes associated with uninformed decision-making.

The workshop was conducted twice in Mumbai, on June 9-10 in 2023, and on June 6-7 in 2024.

About the Faculty

Dr. K. “Vish” Viswanath, PhD

Dr. K. “Vish” Viswanath is the Lee Kum Kee Professor of Health Communication in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health (HSPH) and the McGraw-Patterson Center for Population Sciences at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI). Dr. Viswanath is also the faculty director of the Harvard Chan India Research Center.  Other additional administrative and scientific leadership positions held by Dr. Viswanath include: director of the Center for Translational Communication Science, DFCI/Harvard Chan School; faculty director of the Health Communication Core of the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center (DF/HCC) and co-director, Lee Kum Sheung Center for Health and Happiness, Harvard Chan School.  He is the founding director of DF/HCC’s Enhancing Communications for Health Outcomes (ECHO) Laboratory.

Objectives

The primary objective of the workshop was to enhance the capacity of public health professionals by providing the latest evidence-based knowledge of strategic communication and its impact on message design and delivery effectiveness. The workshop enabled participants to draw on the latest scientific evidence to influence their day-to-day practice.

The workshop:

• Sensitized participants to the importance of employing strategic communication in their, advocacy, program implementation, and policy work;
• Addressed fundamental principles and practices of strategic communication;
• Engaged workshop participants in exercises and case discussions to illustrate the principles;
• Helped them hone their skills in designing and executing successful strategic communication.

Major topics covered in the course included:

• Science of communication and communication of science;
• Message: What we say and how we say it (message construction, framing);
• Communication inequalities;
• Platforms: leveraging social media;
• Misinformation;
• How to work with messengers: advocacy.

The faculty drew on both national and regional examples to illustrate concepts in the program and explore implications for practice. This included: NFHS-5 data, anemia, COVID-19 vaccination, alcohol and tobacco, sanitation, childhood nutrition, childhood vaccination, and others.