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

People, Polar Bears, and the Potato Salad: Mapping the Gaps Between Expert and Public Understandings of Environmental Health

People don't know the term 'environmental health' - and think it must have something to do with keeping our planet clean and green. How can we reframe?

Report

Can Redirecting Values Increase Support for Addiction Policies and Related Issues

This report summarizes the findings of a quantitative experiment that tested thousands of Canadians attitudes and support for policies when exposed to values.

Toolkit

Talking About Children’s Oral Health

Using these templates to build communications can help engage the public in understanding children’s oral health in a deeper way, thereby improving the public conversation and decision-making...

Report

Communicating About Disparities in Children’s Oral Health

The disparities in oral health by economic status and race are important, and deserve the full attention of advocates. If this information isn’t communicated carefully, this can lead to...

Report

How to Talk About Children’s Mental Health: A FrameWorks MessageMemo

This MessageMemo provides advocates with a communications map for improving the public's understanding of children's mental health and the value of solutions.

Toolkit

Talking About Children’s Mental Health

Included in this toolkit are applications materials, based on the research findings, that can help engage the public in understanding children’s mental health, thereby improving the public...

Report

Refining the Options for Advancing Support for Child Mental Health Policies

This report tests the impact of frame elements, specifically interdependence and prevention, on support for progressive children's mental health policies.

Report

The Power of Levelness: Making Child Mental Health Visible and Concrete Through a Simplifying Model

This report presents "Levelness" as an explanatory metaphor that helps people understand early child mental health. It helps people understand that young children have mental health, what promotes...

Report

Moving North: Translating Child Mental Health Values and Models to Canada

This paper presents the results of a survey conducted in Alberta that demonstrates the impact of values on policy support related to children's issues.

Report

Between Cowboys and Barn Raisers: The Challenges of Explaining Child Mental Health and Development in Alberta

This research demonstrates the power of dominant and unproductive understandings of early childhood development and child mental health among Albertans.

Report

Rounding Up the Associations: How Perceptions of Addiction are Recruited

This report maps the gaps between how Albertans think and experts talk about the science of addiction.

Report

More to Genes Than That: Designing Metaphors to Explain Epigenetics

This report presents "Signature Effect" as an explanatory metaphor that helps people reason about the scientific concept of epigenetics.