Educating the Next Generation of Public Relations Professionals in Healthcare Communications

Educating the next generation of public relations professionals in healthcare communications is vital to moving the field forward. Social Cascade intern Deepthi Chandra recently seized her moment by participating in the Public Health Communications Collaborative Academy, a training hub equips public health communicators with the confidence and competency to effectively communicate with the public and their communities.

“The training was helpful in terms of thinking about how to be more inclusive in public health communications,” Chandra says. “For example, I learned about asset-based language, participatory content creation, cultural backgrounds and lived experiences.”

She outlines a few key messages.

Consider your positionality as a researcher.

In the standard model, the researcher holds the power over the data while the community is simply studied. In a data justice-driven method, public health practitioners can think through: How do you best share power with your communities? How do you serve as a facilitator and center around community voices and self-determination?

Be mindful of how you group demographic categories.

These standard groupings may not reflect how people identify. Instead, practitioners can ask people to self-identify and create categories accordingly. Other best practices include using full labels (adding “residents” or “people” instead of just referring to a group by race) and acknowledging the limits of external datasets.

Leverage asset-based framing in public health communications.

Rather than defining a community based on what’s broken, a more inclusive approach is to highlight the positives and strengths of a community, such as strong support networks or cultural histories.

Thanks to the PHCC for inspiring these young minds.

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