Rewriting the Rules: Public Health Education in the Age of AI with Dr. Miruna Buta

Thank you for this question, Miranda.

First of all, I want to acknowledge that the playbook that Kelly and I created owes a lot to the work of Jennifer Beard from Boston University, whose book Teaching Public Health Writing that came out a few years ago really ignited the conversation in our field about how we teach our students this crucial tool.

It was in Jennifer's book that I encountered this quote, which turns out to be from an article led by Laura Magana, the ASBPH president and CEO, describing the launch of the ASBPH Regalman Writing in Public Health program.

So in my view, saying that writing is what makes public health public highlights the importance of communication in our field.

If the mission of public health is to create the conditions in which people can be healthy, then we need to be able to convey clearly and succinctly what we know contributes to people's health.

I think that communication is also important because our main job is to create an environment in which diseases and accidents do not happen and people are able to thrive.

So our work is often invisible.

It's about prevention.

And I think this contributes to the current lack of understanding of what public health does and why it's essential for our society.

And so because of this, articulating and spreading the word about the work that we do is something we're able to do well.

Yeah, no, I couldn't agree more.

So thank you for sharing that.

Because it's really crucial, you know, the way we communicate about public health.

And you're so right, speaking to a lot of the, you know, things that are happening right now, you know, the way we communicate to our constituents and to communities as public health practitioners is so important.

And so where's that start, you know, right with our classrooms and with our academics.

So I love that you alluded to that.

So your framework highlights that public health writing isn't just academic writing.

It includes policy briefs, infographics, social media, and community outreach, and so much more.

So kind of alluding to what you were just talking about, why is communication versatility so critical in public health today?

Yeah, I think communication versatility really ties into this idea that people need to be exposed to our messages and to understand them.

So we have to think about who is our audience, how they access information, and what level of detail or scientific jargon they need to be able to act on the information.

For instance, policy briefs, right, which is one of the things that we use in our field that we teach our students how to write.

These are often aimed at decision makers who don't have the time to review the scientific literature and are not experts in the field, but would like to make evidence-based decisions about the health of their communities.

Because

they have limited funding, they have limited resources, and they want to make sure that those resources go towards solutions that have been proven to work.