Health

Health matters to all of us, but people tend to think about it in narrow, stigmatizing, and fatalistic ways. Framing can help widen the lens.

Too often, factors and circumstances that shape our health are devalued or ignored. The public, elected officials, and some health providers tend to focus narrowly on lifestyles and behaviors.

Language can entrench and spread misconceptions—or it can unlock alternative ideas and perspectives.

Explore these studies to find frames that help explain the social determinants of health and health equity.

Featured Work

Framing Resource

Talking about Health Equity

Here are three sample definitions that use the phrases “fair and full” or “fair and just,” which can complement or replace the word equity.

Toolkit

Boosting Public Discourse: Reframing Childhood Immunization

Find guidance and resources to advocate for expanding access to childhood and adolescent vaccination.

Framing Resource

Explaining the Social Determinants of Health

Here are helpful things to keep in mind when you’re trying to explain why some demographic groups experience better or worse health outcomes than others.

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Report

Toxins and Tension: Media and Organizational Discourse about Public Health

In this report, we identify dominant patterns in media coverage and in the communications of public health advocacy, policy, and research organizations. By analyzing how these practices are likely...

Report

Public Health Reaching Across Sectors: Strategies for Communicating Effectively about Public Health and Cross-Sector Collaboration with Professionals from Other Sectors

With support from the de Beaumont Foundation and the Aspen Institute’s Health, Medicine and Society Program, as part of the Public Health Reaching Across Sectors (PHRASES) Initiative, this...

Report

Public Health Reaching Across Sectors: Mapping the Gaps between How Public Health Experts and Leaders in Other Sectors View Public Health and Cross-Sector Collaboration

Overcoming unproductive perceptions of public health held by other sectors requires an effective communications strategy that can foster a fuller understanding of the field of public health and...

Report

Only Part of the Story: Media and Organisational Discourse about Health in the United Kingdom

This report identifies how media and advocacy groups in the UK frame health and makes recommendations for advocates.

Report

Reframing Hunger in America

How can we elevate public understanding that hunger in America is widespread – and not just a personal failing?

Report

Strategies for Drawing on the Voices of Women Veterans to Communicate about Mental Health

This Message Brief makes recommendations about how to frame women veterans’ mental health on online materials and in communications campaign collateral.

Report

Communicating about Obesity

People do see many pieces of the obesity puzzle, but they tend to arrange them into a picture of individuals failing to overcome challenging circumstances.

Report

Seeing Upstream: Mapping the Gaps between Expert and Public Understandings of Health in the United Kingdom

This report summarizes expert and public understandings of health in the United Kingdom and “maps the gaps” between them.

Report

Telling a Story of Safety: Media and Organizational Discourse on Patient Safety

This report draws on research to describe how media and organizations shape public understanding of patient safety.

Report

Safety Is More than Caring: Mapping the Gaps between Expert, Public, and Health Care Professional Understandings of Patient Safety

This report summarizes how members of the public and health care professionals think about and understand patient safety.

Report

Media and Organizational Discourse on Patient Safety

This report summarizes how advocacy groups and the news media frame the issue of patient safety in news coverage and organizational materials.

Report

Getting Stories to Stick: The Shape of Public Discourse on Oral Health

Building public support—and ultimately changing oral health care policies—requires that we tell a new story.