Amplifying Voices, Building Trust: A Community-Centered Approach to Scientific and Health Communication in Public Health Diplomacy
Public health challenges become increasingly global, building trust through inclusive, transparent communication is pivotal in achieving lasting public health diplomacy outcomes. Communicating scientific evidence is a tangible aspect of public health diplomacy. However, the participatory role of community members is still neglected, limiting their input and undermining public trust. This abstract explores the integration of health communication scholarly framework into both the grassroot organizations and health authorities as an important health diplomacy action.
The model of "Reciprocal Communication," where scientific and health information flows between public health scientists, governmental entities, and communities. Some studies indicate that this reciprocal approach results in increased public trust, improved health outcomes, and stronger relationships between health officials and the communities they serve. Integrating a health communication scholarly framework into the work of grassroot organizations as well as governmental entities is needed to ensure more equitable and culturally sensitive health policies that are sustainable and widely accepted. The framework integrates participatory community listening strategies. Through these mechanisms, community members are empowered to co-create health messages and enhance their health literacy, resonating with their lived experiences, health beliefs, and cultural contexts.
This innovative communication model underscores the need for a joint collaboration between scholars, health authorities, and the civil society organizations to adopt participatory data-driven frameworks based on evidence that prioritize the voices of the people most affected by health decisions.This will lead to more community acceptance and strengthen the sense of mutual responsibilities toward keeping the communities healthy and safe.”
