“Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Research:

Developing Effective Communication and Advocacy Strategies”

Problem

§  Effective ways to promote health, prevent disease, and manage complications of illness and injury evolve over time.

§  Which strategies are best depends on many factors, including personal behaviors, cultural values, social and environmental conditions, and type of disease.

§  Identification of the best strategies to help people live long, healthy lives depends on research, often referred to as prevention research.

§  Funding for prevention research is dependent upon policy makers’ understanding of the importance and contribution of this type of research.

Approach

§  Experion Healthcare Group was retained by one of our nation’s largest public health agencies to assist in the development of communication materials to educate policy makers and the general public about the importance of supporting research activities designed to identify the most effective strategies for promoting health and preventing disease. Working collaboratively with our client, Experion:

o   Designed a two-page template to be used to summarize the research methods and findings of approximately 50 prevention research projects that had been funded by our client;

o   Reviewed research protocols, progress reports and final reports submitted by the Principal Investigators of each of the research projects;

o   Communicated with the Principal Investigators to gather additional information and obtain feedback on early versions of the documents developed to describe their projects; and

o   Created and finalized a series of documents (“Real Stories”) that highlighted each of funded research projects and collectively conveyed the importance of continuing to fund and support prevention research.  

Impact

§  The “Real Stories” have been used by our client to inform policy makers and the general public about the importance of continuing to support research to identify the most effective methods for preventing disease and promoting health.

§  The “Real Stories” have been highlighted on our client’s website and have been disseminated at meetings and conferences.

§  The approach for developing the “Real Stories” and the template used to create them was quite successful and both the approach and template have been used for subsequent projects.