by Walter Jones

More than 600 public health professionals gathered in Chicago June 23-25 for the APHA 2011 Midyear Meeting, which focused on "Implementing Health Reform: A Public Health Approach."  For much of the meeting, attendees discussed ways to protect and defend the threatened Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. However, as an occupational health and safety activist, I found the presentations on framing arguments for progressive change the most interesting and maddening.   

According to the presenters, many progressives believe that if we could just educate our opponents, the facts would win out. Unfortunately, facts matter much less than we'd like to believe. It was suggested that we need to stop framing the argument in terms of being logical but in terms of raising emotions. It was also suggested that we need to remember that large parts of America still believe in rugged individualism and therefore personal responsibility has to be part of any public health message on social determinants of health, if we want to reach a wider audience. We must continually hammer home our message in terms of our values and what it means to be American. It's not clear to me whether this tactic will work, but it was supported by mounds of polling data and focus group results.

Kim Krisberg wrote a fantastic summary for the Pump Handle, Speaking Our Values: Thoughts from the 2011 APHA Midyear Meeting, which expresses my feelings from the meeting, as well.   http://scienceblogs.com/thepumphandle/2011/07/speaking_our_values_thoughts_f.php