As you read the title of this, I am sure you thought I would be writing about how important it is for health care worker to advocate for changes in the health care delivery system that improve the care to our most vulnerable populations. I have written about that before in this blog because I think that is a critical role for all health care providers that often gets overlooked.
While we will change the lives of individual patients and families with our care, we can improve the structure and delivery of health care for communities and populations through our policy advocacy. Both individual care and policy advocacy are critically important if we are ever going to be proud of the health care delivery system of which we are all a part.
But this blog is going to take a little different perspective on the role of advocacy. I am going to ask you to think back to all the articles you have read about health care in the newspapers or on-line or stories you have seen on television. Who is the expert that is interviewed, consulted, or quoted in the news story? Who is represented as the face of health care in the media? In more than 98% of the stories on health care, it is a physician who is providing information and expertise about an innovation in health care or health care delivery. And while I am so respectful of the depth and breadth of knowledge of our physician colleagues, in fact, there are so many areas where other health professionals are more expert.
Consider one of the most pressing issues in our country affecting both health and lifespan – physical inactivity. We know that Americans do not move enough and the American Physical Therapy Association talks about physical activity being the cornerstone of their profession. Who better to be consulted by the media about this important health determinant than physical therapists? While I have not seen physical therapists quoted in New York Times articles about the importance of physical activity, I have seen physicians and others talk about exercise as an important pathway to health and longer life.
Since the 1980’s, when Beatrice and Philip Kalisch wrote their seminal article on nurses in the media, I have been intrigued about how few media articles there are about nursing innovation in practice or nursing research. And while nursing is the largest health profession, its representation in the media is almost non-existent. In a 2017 study by Diana Mason and colleagues (the Woodhall study), nurses were cited as sources in only 2% of the health news stories and never cited in policy-related health stories. This has changed a little bit with COVID-19, but I am not convinced the trajectory will continue once this crisis is over.
I think of the incredible work of our IHP researchers who are studying problems that have an effect on the recovery of individuals with devasting illnesses. Each one of them has a story that would be important in the public media but is rarely explored by our journalist colleagues.
Again, this discussion is in no way a slight of our physician colleagues whom I respect and value as a part of the health care team. Rather, this is a call to action for each one of us. I know none of us entered our professional with the goal of being the spotlight. We became physical therapists, nurses, speech therapists, occupational therapist, physician assistants, and genetic counselors to help people get well and have a better life. But as leaders in the health professions, our role can have a broader impact through advocacy for our work and our profession. How can we be ready for these opportunities and how can we push to make these opportunities more available?
I ask that each of you think about those areas where you are uniquely qualified to provide depth of expertise. Who needs to have that information? What media vehicles would be interested in that expertise? That gives you an idea of where you could begin building relationships.
In the next academic year, the IHP will be hosting educational sessions on media preparedness for faculty and students who are interested in participating in that experience. Being ready when the opportunity arises makes us more open to saying yes when the call comes to be interviewed by a journalist. Finally, the IHP Office of Strategic Communications will be reaching out to places that host expert databases to make sure our IHP experts are included on their lists. If our experts are not included in these databases, it is unlikely we will be consulted when a relevant health issue arises.
Creating visibility for the impact of our professions helps to frame our contributions to health care and in society. And while some may think it’s self-serving, in fact, it’s a service to our professions and the patients we care for. If we think of the major issues facing the health of our country and the world, our health professions are engaged in work that hold the solutions. I look forward to a time when our professions are consulted to explore solutions to the health problems we, as a county, face.