Public Health United

Public health communication about specific diseases is extremely challenging. Experts in diseases are seldom trained to translate jargon into everyday language, leaving a widening gap between the experts and the public. Within this gap, the media has taken on the job—mostly without any formal public health training—of translating jargon into understanding. The quality of public health reporting varies widely in popular media outlets as most have strong biases and lack a real understanding of the disease. This is a dangerous situation: if experts can’t communicate effectively to the lay audience and the media misinforms the public, we risk losing the public’s confidence and support of our research and interventions, leading to rejection of interventions, loss of research funding, and delay or even reversal of public health progress.

Public Health United aims to improve public health communication through podcasts, articles, and outreach.

Founded by Nina Martin, PhD student at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.