Amma Agyemang-Duah and Rachel Morrow, Master of Public Health students, are the first-ever public health communications fellows at the Gillings School of Global Public Health. With support from ARPA funding, they collaborate with North Carolina’s Region 7 Local Health Departments to enhance public health communication skills.
The Gillings School focuses on clear, empathetic public health communication, with a revamped website and an expanded communications fellowship.
We believe the three pillars of good communications are clarity, empathy and understanding. These attributes are of particular importance in public health communications. By employing multiple channels to reach multiple audiences, it’s incumbent upon the communications and marketing unit at Gillings to see these pillars as guideposts in all our communications. For example, this year saw the culmination of a 12-month overhaul of the Gillings website. In this case, bringing greater clarity meant creating a better user experience by cutting down the number of clicks, enabling users to get the information they sought more quickly and efficiently.
Our media relations practice continues to grow, as does our team. As the number one public school of public health, we have a responsibility to show empathy for our community by understanding the health of our state and our region, taking action to improve health. Trends in higher education communications continue to evolve, and we must remain current and our content must remain accessible by highlighting local, regional and global needs. The new challenges of AI and mis- and disinformation present a new level of complexity in our efforts to provide accurate information.
Finally, one of the ways we foster understanding is through our public health communications fellowship, which has doubled in size to four master’s students. Through the fellowship, we aim to address the challenges inherent in successful public health messaging by building a pipeline of graduates, well-versed in communications tactics and strategies.
