Communications Breakdown: What Works (and Doesn't) in Health and Science Communication

Soft Skills, Real Impact: Practical Wins for Health Comm

• CIRTC • Episode 7

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In this episode, we highlight practical communication strategies that professionals can apply right away to extend their reach and impact. We start with insights from our CIRTC YouTube channel, where viewer trends reveal which skills are in highest demand. From there, we discuss why virtual conferences offer unique advantages that often go overlooked. We also spotlight compelling examples of health communication in action, from an Instagram post that makes you stop and think to an ER physician’s authentic video on medication safety. Finally, we share a simple but powerful messaging tip that can make your cause-and-effect statements clearer and more persuasive.

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This podcast is a project of the Center for Injury Research Translation and Communication (CIRTC). Connect with CIRTC: www.cirtc.org

Find CIRTC on LinkedIn, Bluesky, and YouTube.

Note: all thoughts and opinions shared in this podcast are personal and not representative of any organization.

Katrina:

Welcome to Communications Breakdown, where we break down what works and doesn't in health and science communication. I'm Katrina Boylan.

Tracy:

And I'm Tracy Mehan. Today we're going to talk about a range of different topics, but they're all focused on one thing what we can do right now to be better communicators, reach more people and make a bigger impact. Yep.

Katrina:

So let's dive right in. Our first topic is one that I have been wanting to discuss since we started, which is that we have launched a YouTube channel over at CIRTC, so it's C-I-R-T-C. I think there's actually an underscore on that for the YouTube channel, and we'll put a link to that in the show notes. But we started that channel because we needed a place to house some of our trainings, our webinars, you know, things like that, things that we teach all the time. So, for instance, Tracy has been doing a lot of lecturing and seminars and things on AI and she does kind of the intro to AI in every single one, and so we decided to record that so she could also say "hey, I've got an intro to AI. If you need that explainer, you can go check that out on the YouTube channel.

Katrina:

So you know, we just really use it as a place to share things that we're referencing all the time and teaching all the time, and, honestly, it has been fascinating to see what has gotten the most hits or the most views. And so the way YouTube works, for those of you that are not posting on YouTube, content that gets engagement will get recommended more by YouTube as well. So it does kind of snowball on itself. So things that are getting kind of early energy will be given more recommendations and so you get more views. So I mean those things do affect the views that you get. But I think you know these views still give us some information about what people are interested in learning, and you know we're a health comm channel, but a lot of these skills can be transferable outside of health communications, and so it's super valuable information for us.

Katrina:

And so the top video on our YouTube account, interestingly enough, is a video on how to use PowerPoint presenter view on Zoom. We, like the rest of you or many of you, when When we switched to remote in on the early COVID days, all of a sudden we had to learn how to give good virtual presentations on Zoom, and one of the ways we figured out how to do that is share a part of your screen on Zoom so that you can still see your notes in and presenter view. A lot of us are used to having those notes available to us, and so having to all of a sudden present more on the fly didn't always produce a great result, and so this was a way you could still see those notes and use PowerPoint presenter view while you're on Zoom.

Katrina:

And so the second one, which really only has half the views, which I think is interesting, but it is gaining steam. Again, I think, because of those YouTube algorithms, it's been getting more traction recently, and it's on image licenses, and so it's on creative commons, it's on copyright and public domain, and those are all things that affect how you can use different images, different assets that are covered by intellectual property. And so, again, that's something that goes beyond health communication; that's something that we should all be mindful of. But I just think it's interesting that those ended up as the top two of all the videos we talked about.

Tracy:

Yeah, I think that's fascinating as well. But also when you shared that with me, it really got me thinking about why. Why would that be? And it kind of mirrors what I'm seeing in my own spaces and have been for a little while.

Tracy:

I go to all kinds of conferences: a lot of injury prevention ones, some AI ones, things like that, but a lot of what resonates with people that I present has nothing to do with the topic of whatever conference I'm attending and it has everything to do with health communication skills, right. So the ones— you know I used to, for a couple of years, was giving presentations on how to give virtual presentations once we learned those skills, and those far and away ended up being the highest attended sessions, no matter the topic of the conference, and it always fascinated me. And I saw it play out again. It's still resonating, it's still relevant to people. Just last week I was at a huge virtual conference and there was only one session that I was blocked from attending because there were too many people trying to get in that session, and it was a communications session about virtual presentations.

Katrina:

Yeah.

Tracy:

And it was an injury prevention conference and I thought it was fascinating. And to me, it used to be back before COVID, when I would present on health communication topics, I would be excited if there were 20 people in the room, and that was a really big deal and a success. And now to see these sessions getting blocked because there were so many people wanting to attend, I think is fascinating, and it also made me think of yesterday.

Tracy:

I attended an AI conference where they were talking about, in one of the sessions, a resurgence in desire to learn soft skills. Because people are afraid—i n this context it was AI right— people are afraid that AI is going to take their job and so they're starting to latch on to "what can I do That is something that AI can't do, and this speaker said he's seeing soft skills, and one of the soft skills they talked about was communication. AI can't speak like humans yet; they can't bring the thought into it that we do, and so people are more interested in learning those skills. So I think it's you know we are really seeing this resurgence of "how do I communicate, and I just think it's really exciting to see that people are becoming more interested in this.

Tracy:

You know these videos that you shared are little snippets, right, but I think all of that, even the, you know, "how to present means I want to be a better presenter. "What images am I allowed to use? Mean they're paying more attention to the communications that they're giving. They're including more visuals because they're realizing that that matters, right. So I just think it's really interesting to see that.

Katrina:

Yeah, the image license one particularly surprises me because it's something that I don't find a lot of people are aware of until we bring it up. Yes, it's not just, it's almost like they don't even think about it. And, you know, with a researcher or a scientist of any type, they can't imagine not citing a text reference or something they used that's text but yet, you know, might pull an image just off of Google and use it. You know, now I think that again has come a long way from what we used to see 10, you know, kind of 15 years ago. But I also think, with the rise of AI, I think people are more interested in where this image is coming from, who owns it, and making sure that creators, I think, get some of that attention or get that credit where it's due. And I think that kind of dovetails with what you were talking about with the soft skills and how you're looking for that human element.

Tracy:

I do want to call out one more point, too. I need to share these videos myself quite a bit. I shared them last night with a group of people that I'm training that are new to thinking about how to create educational materials. They were taking images that they weren't allowed to use, we didn't have copyright for and hadn't thought about, "Oh, I shouldn't do that, not only because I need to give the creator credit, but also I'm putting my institution at risk if I use these right?

Katrina:

Yep, absolutely.

Tracy:

And I think that's a really big deal. I think both of those points are important. It's important to give the people that do the work and create these images the credit they deserve, but we also have to think about our institutions, and if you use those images, you can put your institution at risk, and we've seen it. We've seen institutions getting sued for using images that they weren't—w e've seen institutions getting sued for using fonts that they aren't allowed to use. So right, this really does matter. I mean, it's happening more and more, so that may be part of it as well.

Katrina:

Yeah, absolutely. Well, Tracy, so, relatedly, you did just attend a virtual conference, and I know that you've been to some in-person conferences in the last few years as well and heard about, you know, how nice it is to see everyone again and be in person and maybe heard some grumbling about other conferences being virtual, and you and I, I think, have discussed since COVID forced this issue about how virtual conferences really do have some distinct advantages that we just don't think get enough consideration.

Tracy:

Yeah, this is something I feel very passionate about, and I get it. People want to connect and see each other in person. There is nothing that can replace that hug or that coffee with a new acquaintance, right, I get that. But I firmly believe that there are some big values to virtual conferences that people don't think enough about. One of them is: not everybody can afford to attend conferences, or their institutions can't afford to send them, and a lot of the cost is because of the travel and the hotel and the food, right. And so virtual conferences give opportunities to people who might not otherwise be able to attend, for whatever reason. Maybe it's they can't afford it; maybe it's they can't afford to be away from home because their home environment doesn't allow them to be away. Whatever it is, we invite people to the table in a virtual conference in ways that can't happen in person. So I think that's really important.

Tracy:

And another thing that I see happen that I think is also really important to consider is the engagement that happens when people attend virtual events of any kind. I see people discussing in the chat, I see people sharing resources, I see many people engaging not only with the speaker but, in some cases, with each other in ways that you just don't see happen in real life— there's not space for it. Usually there's time for you know three or four questions and then you have to move on. If the questions can happen during the whole presentation, it now opens up a whole new world of discussion that can't happen in person.

Katrina:

You know, that's so true. You know, as somebody who doesn't come from public health— I don't have a stats degree, I don't have a science degree, I don't have a lot of the background that I think I need to really understand some of the things that are presented to me working in this environment. And so I will be honest, I get nervous asking questions in person. Tracy has seen me do this; you know I end up my, you know, my voice wavers, my hands shake and it is awful, and my main fear is looking stupid in front of all of these peers. You know I wasn't trained in this and so I am just never sure whether my question is maybe something that is well understood in the field or just doesn't make sense, or, you know, it's kind of missing something big that everybody else knows. And so if I can put that in the chat, even mid kind of presentation as you referenced, not only can somebody else help me understand, is this, again, something easily understood and maybe pass along a resource or just answer that question for me, so then I can get back into the presentation and understand. Or if it's something completely off the wall, you know it'll kind of get ignored and we'll just move on. You know everybody moves on without interrupting the whole presentation. You don't need to address it for the whole audience.

Katrina:

But, as you said, it's that ability to help each other in ways that we can't do when the only people we can really interact with at a presentation might be the ones sitting next to us. And even then, when you're in person with somebody, you know it's not very nice to sit there and look things up or chit chat or whatever through the presentation.

Katrina:

But if you've got a question and you can drop it in the chat and somebody can answer for you know, for you right away, then I get to keep going and further understand what the speaker is talking about as well. So I personally yes, I do love a good in-person conference, don't get me wrong, but for all the reasons you mentioned, but especially for the part that it helps me engage with the content more and feel like I can take something away a little bit more if I've got the space to feel like I'm not causing a problem by asking a question that isn't worthy of the time spent on it. Because, as you said, you do only get a couple of questions and so mine's probably not going to be the most important one, but I still think, from my own understanding, I need that question answered. So I appreciate that I can drop that into the chat and get that answer without feeling again like I'm going to disrupt the larger audience experience or something like that.

Tracy:

I think that's hugely valuable for people to hear, because if you're having that question, other people in the audience are too, and who's to say what the value of the question is, right? Sometimes the questions that get asked, let's be honest they're positioning somebody to show how much they know, right, they're not actually answering a question.

Katrina:

This is more of yeah, this is more of a comment than a question.

Tracy:

Exactly, exactly.

Katrina:

How many of us hear that?

Tracy:

Right? And so what this allows people to do is ask the questions that they might keep to themselves but would help so many other people, I think. You know I really hope that people listen to this, think about that and think about that what virtual can bring to the table in ways that in person doesn't, because I think it has a huge amount of value, and some of the best resources I have gotten have been from other people in the chats of virtual sessions I have attended.

Tracy:

Yeah, there's also one more thing that I just thought of, actually, that I think is really important to consider and also interesting. So when I'm in- person, I have a little notebook that I take with me into all of my sessions, and I take all of these little notes and I write down all these great ideas and things I'm going to do. I have a whole system where I star it if I want to read this later, and, you know, I, you know make some other mark if I'm going to— an action that I need to take, and things like that.

Tracy:

What usually happens, though, is I go home and I go back to my everyday work, and that notebook sometimes comes back out, but, let's be honest, a lot of times it doesn't. Or, if it does, I'll do one or two of those things. When I'm doing virtual sessions, I actually open a Google Doc and I take notes real time, digitally, and what's happening, and I can even screenshot slides and drop them in my notes, and I have found, with those I go back way more often. They're right at my fingertips; they're easily accessible. I interact with it in a different way. I know that you can take your laptop and go to events like that. Sometimes.

Katrina:

It's not the same though.

Tracy:

In some rooms you're balancing a laptop on your desk because there's not a desk in front of you, or I want to engage with the speaker and be making eye contact and not seem like I'm checking my email or something, right?

Katrina:

Right right, the productivity aspect of it is almost rude to do, yeah, and the speaker, if I'm a speaker and everybody's on their laptops, I'm going to assume they're not listening to me. Versus—you're totally right—how many times do I attend a virtual conference and I've made edits live before to things as I hear, if I have an idea, again, from a conference or you know, a presentation, a virtual presentation or a webinar or things like that, you're right, I sit here and you know if it's on a website or the social media or whatever it is, or if an idea is sparked for a visual, for instance, I can open up Canva right there. I can open up my website right there and look at, okay, this person's talking about this particular skill, this point, whatever it is— what does it look like in my vision? I can look at it on my website, on my graphic, in my language, in my field. And that instant applicability, right, about the notebooks— I don't know how many notebooks we've got, right? You and I have sat through meetings and conferences and all these things and we've got these notebooks, but being able to instantly implement certain things or give myself those reminders in my work setting has made me so much more productive.

Tracy:

It really does. It's amazing to me, and so I hope that we can find ways to celebrate both. There are places for both. You know there are certain things you can only do in person. I get that for sure. But I sometimes hear people say, oh, I'm so sad that we had to do this virtually, and I would love the script to be flipped somewhat t o think positively: I'm excited that we are offering these opportunities virtually. Because of all of those reasons we just talked about, I think there's a place for that.

Katrina:

Yeah, no, I totally agree. Okay. So, moving on here, we wanted to just take a moment in this episode to shout out some examples of health communications that we have liked enough to, well, in some cases, share with each other on Instagram or just tell each other about. And so when I was looking back on what I have sent to Tracy this week, especially on Instagram, it was more "which donkey bray, do you like the best? This is no joke, and less about health comm. So, Tracy, we're going to start with what you sent to me.

Tracy:

Okay, I want to start by saying Katrina is absolutely going to link the donkey bray in our show notes and it's so cute. Please watch it.

Katrina:

For the record, Tracy's favorite was Boots.

Tracy:

Exactly. Anyway. But what I wanted to talk about was one that came up (we're going to link it in the show notes) and it was about what happens on the football field when there might be a concussion. And I wanted to stop and talk about it because it literally stopped me in my tracks. I was not looking for health information; I was not seeking this out. I was scrolling one night, you know, sitting on the couch and looking at all different sorts of things, and this got me to stop what I was doing and look at it, and I think there's a huge amount of power in that because, exactly for the reason of I wasn't looking for it, it made me stop. And to kind of set the scene, what you see in the first image of this Instagram carousel is you're looking at a Friday Night Lights football field with a helmet and a football. The helmet and the football are even clip art, but it's the field that caught my attention, and the text says, "he's 17,. He just took a brutal hit. He says it's fine, the crowd's watching. Coach is pressuring. You're the medic. What do you do?

Tracy:

And it made me feel something. It put me in the shoes of the medic or the athletic trainer. I could visualize myself standing on the sideline and think, yeah, we do put these people in these situations. You know, disclosure, my son played football, so I literally have been on the sidelines in those situations. But it stopped me and it got me to read a carousel that wasn't something I was searching out, that wasn't something that I was looking for. And it didn't have to be super fancy. If you look at the rest of the carousel, it's not fancy, it's just text and some flip art. But it got me to read it. That first image was enough. And so I wanted to call it out, because sometimes it is important for us as public health people to know we have to get them to stop and look at our messages, for them to have enough power for them to read moving forward. So kudos to Brain and Beyond for getting me to stop and look at your information.

Katrina:

Yeah, and I mean just for the record, I do not have a child that's played football and I agree with you on feeling those emotions and feeling like I could relate to this person and the pressure that they were feeling. So I don't even think it's just having a kid who's played football and spending time on the sidelines.

Tracy:

Yeah, and to be clear, this is not somebody I follow. I've not seen any of their other posts. I don't know why it showed up on my timeline. I don't know anything else about what they do, but this one caught me and I think that's yeah, it was powerful.

Katrina:

Yeah, and I mean in kind of an opposite vein, I'm going to highlight something I thought was really well done on medication safe storage. We're doing some work on that right now for some of our projects, and so I've been kind of out there looking to see what kind of videos and resources are available on medication safety. And I don't know how many of you are familiar with an account. It's an ER doc; her name is Beach Gem 10 on TikTok or Dr Beach Gem 10 on Instagram. I believe her name might be Megan Martin, I can't recall.

Katrina:

Anyway, again, we'll link to these things in the show notes, but I'm sure some of you listening have seen her, and if you haven't, you definitely should go look at her stuff because it's just really, really good, and so I've been aware of her, you know, for a while now, but I specifically was looking at a video that she has on storing medicine and other types of things safely in the home. And so somebody had asked her the question of, "ny advice on how I lock them up. I struggle to find a safe or lockbox,

Katrina:

And so the video is clearly her in her kitchen. You know it's her real life. And this is her persona, you know, that you get let into her real life, but you can tell this is— she can endorse this method because she's using it, and so she walks around. You know, they're using a lock for it looks like the liquor cabinet and then shows how up above the refrigerator, up and away, they have another cabinet with another lock, and it looks like they keep some medication in there, and so she kind of walks through what they do in their own home. You know I don't remember how many kids she's got, you know her husband and stuff, but this is how they have chosen to keep their kids safe, right, and she's an ER doc and so you know she's got that credibility.

Katrina:

But then it flips to also addressing the other aspect of this question.

Katrina:

So she gave advice on how to lock them up, and then the person also said I struggle to find a safe or a lockbox, and so she kind of walks through what your options might be for locks that you can use, but if you don't have a cabinet that can lock, she also gives you some examples of different products that will work for lockboxes, and so I just really appreciate the fact that she didn't jump straight into kind of the product recommendations. She established this authenticity and credibility with a literal look at how she does it in her own home and I personally don't have the guts to turn the camera around and film my own home, and so I really admire the vulnerability of this, but I also really admire she's answering all aspects of this question. She's doing it in a straightforward, factual way and the entire time you know you can tell it's just kind of her with her phone. I just again I really appreciate the factual nature but the trustworthiness that just oozes from this post by the fact that you can tell that this is how she is handling this own problem in her own home.

Katrina:

So shout out to BeachGem10. Again she's got millions of followers, so it's not like we're onto something new here, but again, this is some of the most outstanding health communication I think being done out there.

Tracy:

Yeah, I've seen quite a few of her posts and she's fantastic, and I love that. She talks about what we all know people and parents are dealing with, and she does it without judgment. She does it this is how I am experiencing it and how I think I can answer your question and, like you said, she even goes into her own home. Yeah, I love that she does that, but I cannot recommend her enough and definitely encourage you to check her out.

Tracy:

Okay, the last thing we wanted to highlight in this episode was something that we saw in the newsletter from the Harvard School of Public Health, and we'll put a link to that in the show notes if you want to sign up for that, which I recommend because it has information just like this.

Katrina:

This was one that I thought was particularly helpful, especially as we think about how the language that we use affects how the listener receives that message, and so what I'm going to do is just read you a quote here from this newsletter, and again we'll put this in the notes. But it said, "When you are describing how a product works, try to make sure that any directional language you use is consistent between cause and effect. For example, to describe how an EpiPen works, try an EpiPen boosts epinephrine levels, which increases space in your airways, rather than an EpiPen increases epinephrine, which reduces swelling. And so, as somebody who does messaging all the time this is my job I was like this is something I can use right away

Katrina:

And so I was thinking about it, you You know, again we've been working on medication safety recently, recently and I was thinking about how that would , and in my own work right now, and so the example I can think of is: is I could say that removing expired medications from the home, which is a negative frame, will keep kids safer, but that's a positive frame, and so that goes against— the The cause and effect are the opposites. So instead I should say that removing expired and unused medications from the home will reduce risk. Both of those are the negative frames. Or I could flip it the other way and say safer medicine storage— positive frame— keeps kids safer, safer also positive frame. So I guess you know this was one that caught my eye and thought, ah, I can use this literally right now.

Tracy:

Yeah, I think that's really interesting and when you read that it made me stop and think, :"have we always done this. I don't know we have to go back and look at some of our stuff, but we absolutely could use this and think about it moving forward, cause I don't know if we always have done it that way. So very helpful.

Tracy:

All right, that's it for this episode. We appreciate you listening and it really does help our reach if you follow the podcast and leave a comment. You can also use the link at the top of the show notes to send us a text, and you can find CIRTC—t hat's C-I-R-T-C— on LinkedIn and Blues ky. Reach out; we love to hear from you.

Katrina:

All right, Thanks everyone. We'll see you next time.

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Katrina Boylan

Host
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Tracy Mehan

Host