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Making Every Message Count

Tell great stories like the expert you are. Talking Health is a comprehensive, research-backed, 6-hour training that provides practical solutions to and practice with real-life health communications challenges. Designed by and for public health professionals, it aims to help them communicate with purpose across diverse audiences. It fills the gap between detailed trainings meant for communications specialists and general trainings that lack concrete tools and strategies.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Public health communications is a critical skill that helps build trust, leverage relationships, and improve community health. Unfortunately, most public health professionals and their multi-sector partners have had little or no formal training in communications. What’s more, most existing communications trainings are not tailored for or accessible to public health professionals and their collaborators. Even if they may not view themselves as communicators, public health practitioners consistently and regularly communicate with diverse communities.

The Talking Health training equips these individuals with the confidence and competence to communicate more effectively. Through this course, the de Beaumont Foundation aims to strengthen public health communications and improve trust in public health.

Talking Health is an on-demand, self-paced course consisting of five modules that build upon each other. Through the course capstone project, participants address a real-world communications challenge specific to their work and use it to practice key concepts from each module. By the end of the training, participants will leave with a comprehensive, printable, and downloadable plan to address their communications challenge. Modules include the following topics:

  • Making the Case for Public Health Communications
  • Bridging Gaps in Public Health Communication
  • Creating Audience-Focused Messages
  • Public Health Storytelling
  • Message Testing

Each module includes a series of short videos of subject matter experts explaining communications best practices, followed by practical application activities. Each module should take around one hour to complete. The course is interactive and engaging with dynamic animations, self-reflections, practical applications, and a capstone project that brings it all together. The entire training should take six hours to complete.

Currently, access to all Talking Health on-demand modules is free.

Talking Health is designed to support public health professionals of all types, no matter their role, level (e.g., management or individual contributors), jurisdiction type (e.g., local, state, federal, Tribal), education or organization type (e.g., government public health agencies, academic institutions, public health institutes, grassroots organizations, non-profits, and others).

The training is also designed to support multi-sector partners working in education, transportation, housing, parks and recreation, health care, economic development, and other areas.

While the course does not currently qualify for certified continuing education credits, participants can qualify for a CPH (Certificate of Public Health) and REHS (Registered Environmental Health Specialist) credential. Upon completion of the on-demand course, participants will receive digital certificates that can be posted on personal websites and social media.