The United States is facing a crisis of understanding, trust, and confidence in public health institutions and guidance, fueled by misinformation and politicization — and weak communication is at the core of these challenges.
Most U.S. adults have a limited understanding of public health concepts, which is unsurprising considering how public health has typically been communicated to the public and the repeated conflation of public health and health care in public discourse. There is no shared language to consistently explain what public health entails, and much of the language that prominent public health organizations have used has not advanced the public’s understanding of the field and the ways it adds value to people’s lives. Common messages such as “public health is everything” or “public health is invisible” only further confuse the public and fail to build understanding of the critical role public health plays in communities.
These barriers to effective communication are increasing the chasm between public health professionals and the communities they serve, furthering distrust at a time when it is greatly needed and creating opportunities for misinformation to take root and spread among the public.
In partnership with CommunicateHealth, the de Beaumont Foundation has sought to determine what people already know about public health and which talking points are most effective in building public health literacy. From this research, de Beaumont developed a research-based message strategy to help public health professionals build community members’ understanding of public health and its value. The insights gleaned and tools created from this research can help all public health professionals become more effective communicators.
Big Ideas for Effective Communication
The toolkit is based on findings from surveys, focus groups, and in-depth interviews with more than 1,600 U.S. adults. Five “big ideas” emerged from the research. These were the central misconceptions about public health that came up most often, leading to erroneous or negative beliefs about public health. Once these misconceptions were clarified, respondents’ understanding of public health significantly increased.
These big ideas point to knowledge gaps and offer talking points and examples to employ them in communicating about public health.
Big Idea 1: Public health works at the community level.
Many people associate public health with health care. While health care providers typically see one patient at a time, public health workers care for the health of entire communities.
Talking points and examples: While doctors and nurses care for individual patients, most public health workers care for the health of entire communities.
For example:
- Researchers track how infectious diseases like measles spread from person to person.
- Inspectors check public pools to make sure the water is safe to swim in.
- Health educators teach people how to manage health conditions like diabetes.
Big Idea 2: Public health focuses on prevention.
Whereas health care focuses on treating people once they are already sick, public health activities prevent people from getting sick or hurt in the first place.
Talking points and examples: Because of public health, many serious diseases that were common in your parents’ or grandparents’ generations are now very rare in the United States. Public health workers take action to protect people from getting sick or hurt by doing things like:
- Looking for patterns in community data for signs of health threats.
- Vaccinating people against diseases that spread from person to person.
- Educating people about ways to stay healthy, like eating a variety of nutritious foods.
Big Idea 3: Public health workers serve their local communities.
Although public health is usually associated with federal agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or national leaders like the U.S. Surgeon General, a lot of important public health work happens in the communities where people live, work, and play.
Talking points and examples: Public health doesn’t just do one thing. Instead, public health workers take many different actions in their communities to help protect people’s health. For example, they:
- Inspect local restaurants to make sure food is prepared safely.
- Provide cancer screenings to community members.
- Help residents stay safe during extreme weather.
Big Idea 4: Public health workers play a variety of professional roles — and many work behind the scenes.
People in many professional roles work together, under the umbrella of public health, to protect their community’s health. These activities aren’t always visible in the everyday lives of community members, but they do make a difference.
Talking points and examples: You may not always notice them, but public health workers include many people with different skills all working together to protect the community’s health. For example, let’s say there is an outbreak of food-borne illness in your community.
- Researchers may conduct studies and look for patterns in the data to find out what foods are making people sick.
- Based on the researchers’ findings, local health departments may post on social media and alert local news stations to let community members know what foods to avoid.
- Community health workers may test people for the illness and help them get the treatment they need to feel better.
- Restaurant inspectors may work to prevent future food-borne illnesses in the community.
Big Idea 5: Public health benefits everyone.
Some people assume that public health is only for people who don’t have health insurance or those who use benefits or services provided by the government. But public health supports everyone. In fact, public health professionals play an important role in making sure everyone has access to the resources they need to be as healthy and safe as possible.
Talking points and examples: Public health is based on the idea that everyone should have an equal chance to be as healthy and safe as possible. Public health workers help every member of a community by doing things like:
- Educating community members on health and safety guidelines and recommendations so that they can make informed choices to protect their health.
- Testing the local water supply to make sure people have clean water to drink.
- Providing affordable hearing or vision tests to anyone who needs them.
The findings and tools from this research can serve as a useful starting point for public health professionals seeking to improve their communication skills. However, it is critical that public health professionals use these tools in ongoing engagement with their communities. Simply talking about public health will not earn trust, but committing to principles of thoughtful, empathetic, and evidence-based communication can make a difference.
For more information and to access the toolkit, visit https://debeaumont.org/resources/communicating-about-public-health-toolkit.
This column first appeared in the May/June 2025 issue of the Journal of Public Health Management & Practice. See the final authenticated version.
