Conveying Health Information to Media & Colleagues��Day 1

Data Impact Program

Communicating with Data

Workshop Overview

Data Impact Program

Introduction

• In 2015, Bloomberg Philanthropies in partnership with the Australian government launched the Data for Health Initiative
• Ultimate goal: saving more lives by ensuring countries have more accurate public health information
• The Initiative has three main ‘arms’:
1. Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS)
2. Data impact
3. Non-communicable Diseases (NCDs)

Data Impact

• Collaborates with government to expand use of data to enhance public health
• Promotes use of data to set priorities, allocate resources, formulate policies, drive accountability
• Supports activities in:
• Decision support
• Public dissemination of data
• Policy consultation
• Capacity building in using data for policy and public health practice
• Implementing partner Vital Strategies

3 Keys to Effectiveness

Find compelling story elements in the data

Sequence the data into a story plot

Make data accessible to target audience

Data Impact Program

Find compelling story elements

Data Story Elements: Advocacy

Sequence the data into a story plot

Plot Structure of Stories: Freytag’s Pyramid

Sequence the data into a story plot

Where could we have been

Plot Structure of a Sample Data Story

Make data accessible to target audience�

Tips for Expressing Data

Conveying Health Information to Media & Colleagues

Session 1.1 – Introductions & Overview

Data Impact Program

Training Goal

Help build Ministry’s capacity to share health information with the media and general public

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Session Objectives

By the end of the training, you will be able to:

• Use a model to help guide and plan health communications
• State the importance of developing a profile for your target audiences
• Develop one single overriding communication objective (SOCO) for a health message
• Present supporting data so that they are more understandable to your audiences
• Participate in planning and conducting a press conference
• Practice managing questions from the press
• Draft a plan for your health communications
• State the benefits of institutionalizing a communications plan

Day 1 Overview

Zuma Video

• Who is to blame for this blunder?

Getting to Know You

Message in the Data?

Session 1.2

Data Impact Program

Session Objectives

By the end of the session, you will be able to:

• Use selected data to begin to develop preliminary health-related messages
• Decide which media you would use to convey the messages
• Justify your decisions about messages and media

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What’s the Message in the Data?

1. Interpret the data given to your group. What do the data mean?
2. Your group has been assigned a target audience. Using the data given to you, decide what key message to convey to your target audience.
3. Decide the best mechanism or media for getting your message to your audience and why?

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You have 20 minutes for this activity. Be prepared to present (5 minutes) and justify your group’s work

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Was it easy to find the message in the data?

1. Did the key point jump out at you?
2. How did you decide what was the most important message?
3. Any challenges?

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Why Use Data?

Session 1.3

Data Impact Program

Session Objectives

• By the end of the session, participants will be able to:
• State at least five purposes of health information
• Identify at least three reasons why using data is critical in health communications
• Identify at least three sources of data available to them for use in their communications work

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Purposes of Health Information

What does this tell you?

Source: World Bank Data Topics Gender Equality

Why use data?

Using Data Wisely

• Provides evidence
• Strengthens your argument or position
• Lends the Ministry credibility and professionalism

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Questions

• Which purpose would the data serve in a health communications message?
• With which audience could the data be used?
• Why would the data you selected be important for your selected audience?

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Basic Communication Model

Session 1.4

Data Impact Program

Session Objectives

• By the end of the session, participants will be able to:
• Identify a basic communications model that can help you organize the way you think about health communication
• Name the five components of the model
• State the relationship among the five components of the model

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Communication

• Who is involved?

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• What is involved?

Basic Communication Model

Adapted from Source: Making Data Talk: Communicating Public Health Data to the Public, Policy Makers, and the Press (2009). David E. Nelson, Bradford W. Hesse, and Robert T. Croyle, Figure 2.1, p. 31.

Does anything ever go wrong in this process?

Adapted from Source: Making Data Talk: Communicating Public Health Data to the Public, Policy Makers, and the Press (2009). David E. Nelson, Bradford W. Hesse, and Robert T. Croyle, Figure 2.1, p. 31.

What affects the effectiveness of communication?

Adapted from Source: Making Data Talk: Communicating Public Health Data to the Public, Policy Makers, and the Press (2009). David E. Nelson, Bradford W. Hesse, and Robert T. Croyle, Figure 2.1, p. 31.

Components of the Model

Know Each Component Well

• Be clear about purpose
• Have a clear strategy for getting audience’s attention
• Know what influences your audience
• Helps you know if (and how) they will receive the message
• Careful planning + knowing your audience = more control over whether the message will be received

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Summary: Why is using the communication model important?

1. Helps organize the communication
2. To give each component sufficient attention
3. So that if something goes wrong in the process, you can isolate where it needs to be fixed or improved
4. All of the above

Who’s your audience?

Session 1.5

Data Impact Program

Session Objectives

• By the end of the session, you will be able to:
• Identify at least four target audiences of importance
• Develop a profile for those four audiences
• State the importance of knowing who your audiences are
• Identify best practice for communicating with technical vs. non-technical audiences

Target Audiences

• General public (either directly or through the media)
• Researchers
• Policymakers/government officials
• Health partners and funders
• NGOs/Civil Society
• Media
• Very important, as the media is a major conduit for reaching other audiences

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Any more?

• Are there any other audiences we’ve missed?

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Group Work

• Develop a “profile” for your audience.
• Brainstorm characteristics of your audience, and then answer the following questions.
• Who are the people in your audience?
• What might they know/not know about the topic?
• What do they need to know?
• Why do they care about the topic? How much time and interest will they have to devote to the topic?
• What is their background? What is their level of technical proficiency?
• What is their level of education?
• What do you want them to do with the information in your communication?
• How can you get their attention?

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Technical vs. Non-Technical Audiences

Data Impact Program

Make This Understandable

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Non-Technical (lay) Audience

Between 2005 and 2015, there was a 10% increase in suicides amongst township adolescents

Technical Audience

Suicide increased 9.65% among adolescents between 2005 and 2015 (p < 0.05), with 4.6 deaths per 100,000 in 2015 in the township

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Make This Understandable

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Non-Technical (lay) Audience

Men who smoke are three times more likely to have a heart attack than men who don’t smoke

Technical Audience

We conducted a longitudinal analysis of 900 men and found that the odds of myocardial infarction (MI) were 3.45 times greater in smokers than in non-smokers

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Lay audiences: what works?

• Use concise language
• Present data transparently and completely
• Address uncertainty
• If the audience has mistaken beliefs, address them!
• Give them something to do
• Make recommendations
• Use boxes and summaries
• Use familiar types of data (e.g., round numbers)
• Make it easy for them to relate; make it interesting
• Provide context

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Technical audiences: what works?

• Summarize and present only necessary information
• Context not so important
• Package information in a way that they can use for decision-making or developing policy
• What are the objectives?
• What are the limitations?
• What are the recommendations for public health action?
• Why should they care about the data?

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Summary

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Here are some of ours:

• Important to know your audience
• Develop a profile of them before beginning to write your messages
• Research the data you will use. Make sure the data you choose are understandable to your target audience
• Use concrete, specific, and precise words that do not overcomplicate your message. Use as few words as possible.

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What are your “take-away” messages?

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Evaluate and Close

• How did we do today?
• What is on for tomorrow?

Data Impact Program