Communicating with Policy Makers

Yesterday, we were honored to have Dr. Jennifer Nadeau, Director of Communications at the Guttmacher Institute make a presentation to the class.

Nadeau explained the mission of her organization, "to communicate research about reproductive health to policy makers, journalists and other decision-makers" and some of what she does as Director of Communications, "communicate research in plain language."

There are a number of points that Nadeau made in her presentation that I wanted to highlight here.

First, she talked about the strategic use of different types of media for different types of communication. In several settings (W. Africa) with various audiences (policy makers), new media is simply not the most effective mechanism for communicating. However, in terms of reaching journalists she pointed out that the Institute's website is a crucial tool for getting information to the media. I found her discussion of the way quotes are generated (often made up by communications staff) and used by journalists (they need these to write articles, but rarely call to get quotes given tight deadlines) to be particularly illuminating.

(On a related note, though not discussed in class, you should note the distinction here between the way articles are written by journalists and the methods used for peer-reviewed articles, such as the journals that the Institute publishes. )

Second, her discussion of the uses of new media and emerging technologies, such as Skype, for internal and project communication is an important one. We need to think of new technologies as not only changing the way we communicate health messages, we need to also consider how these technologies can change the way we do our jobs in developing and fine-tuning those messages within health-focused organizations.

Third, Nadeau addressed some of the constraints on the Institute's work based on the political context surrounding reproductive health. This is something we've heard before, in Estelle Raboni's presentation on TEENWIRE.com. The social, political and cultural context in which health messages are created and distributed is an important factor to address, whether you are talking about reproductive health or another area. And, it makes the Guttamacher Institute's focus on communicating with policy makers all the more crucial.