The COVID-19 pandemic emphasized the importance of communication to ensure public adherence to preventive measures that limit disease transmission.
To build those skills for its students, the UNMC College of Public Health is partnering with the College of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to offer a media communications seminar.
“Communication is a core competency of public health, and it’s a skill that needs to be practiced,” said Nicole Kolm-Valdivia, PhD, assistant dean for academic affairs at the UNMC College of Public Health. “This training is an opportunity for our students, who are current or future public health practitioners, to gain confidence in participating in media interviews, understand how to communicate scientific messages for a lay audience and engage in social media.
“This ultimately leads to their ability to more effectively promote and protect the health of their communities.”
Public health communications operate on the principles of transparency, reliability and trust. But trust can be difficult to build, especially in turbulent times.
The pandemic reinforced the important lesson that the public and public health representatives should have established relationships before an emergency occurs. To build these relationships, public health workers need to be prepared to use all communication channels available.
In this age of social media and misinformation, however, those communications channels can be hard to navigate.
During the one-day training, public health students are taught how to interact with the media, utilize social media and communicate information in a public health crisis. The sessions are held by the CoJMC Dean and faculty members.
The second part of the day includes mock interviews based on real-world public health scenarios conducted by journalism students. Following the interviews, public health students receive personal feedback based on observations made during the exercise.
The first training took place at UNL on Dec. 2, and students praised the quality of the training they received.
“The media training was very comprehensive, insightful and educational. Unlike other media talks, this seminar specifically focused on how to develop and nurture media relationships,” said Juliana Monono, first year student in the College of Public Health Master of Public Health program. “Through the interview session, I learned how to specifically use my expertise as a public health professional when answering questions from reporters and to always know my ‘why’ and emphasize that point throughout the interview.”
Monono added, “It is a relevant skill we need to develop in this new era of public health and social media.”
Four more sessions are scheduled this year, during the spring and summer semesters, both virtually and in-person.
As someone with a background in communication, media relations, and social media, who is now a part of public health outreach with my colleagues, I applaud these efforts! Very exciting!
As a public health professional, it felt like great realistic hands-on training and an intense media interview experience. I highly recommend this to every public health professional. Thanks a lot to our UNL and UNMC!!!!