Communications Accomplishments and Progress

Overview

Our communications goal: Promote and strengthen trust in public health information.

To achieve our communications goal, we set four specific objectives:

• Inform public health discourse and decision-making through thought leadership globally and locally.
• Increase the reach and impact of our research with new and innovative communications strategies.
• Develop a training infrastructure to teach faculty, staff, and students to be trusted and authentic public health communicators.
• Deepen relationships with local communities, sharing Rollins’ public health findings with Georgia residents to help them advance their own health goals.

At a time when it is more important than ever to ensure accurate and trustworthy public health information is available to the public, we are thrilled that in less than a year, we have made major strides toward each of our objectives.

At a foundational level, we have strengthened and evolved the Rollins communications team, adding critical team members and positioning all staff in the right roles.

With a strong communications team in place, we have bolstered our ability to support communications needs across the school.  To enhance our thought leadership, we have significantly improved Rollins faculty and researcher engagement with the media—increasing media access of our experts and our overall impressions in major press outlets. And we have launched new faculty media training programs as well as strengthened how we support faculty in engaging with the media on an ongoing basis.

Over the past year, we have developed a multitude of new and innovative communications strategies to increase the reach and impact of our research. Highlights include launching a highly successful new Rollins public health and science communications-focused Instagram account, evolving our Rollins Magazine, and increasing the frequency of Rollins news content, as well as developing new article types.

Additionally, in August 2024, Rollins launched a new weekly one-hour radio show and podcast with Atlanta NPR-affiliate WABE, which we co-produce: Health Wanted.

Since September 2023, we have also kicked off a number of public health and science communication training initiatives to teach faculty, staff, and students to be trusted and authentic public health communicators. These efforts have included in-house media training and partnering with the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science. We have provided training through one-on-one sessions, small-group workshops, guest lectures, and recorded seminars.

We continue to prioritize community-centered content, both to strengthen our relationships with all communities and to share Rollins’ public health findings with Georgia residents to help them advance their own health goals. We regularly publish content on our new Instagram channel to address timely topics and combat misinformation and disinformation that circulates within local communities.

Key Achievements

Inform public health discourse and decision-making through thought leadership globally and locally.

• Supported more than 200 one-on-one conversations between Rollins faculty and media from Sept. 2023-July 2024.
• Developed a new Rollins experts web page to make it easier for media and policymakers to find and connect with our faculty and researchers.

Increase the reach and impact of our research with new and innovative communications strategies.

• Launched a new radio show and podcast with Atlanta NPR-affiliate WABE, which we co-produce: Health Wanted.
• Created a new Rollins Instagram channel, which has gained 20,000 followers since launch and has a very high level of engagement, with many posts receiving between 1,000 and 2,000 likes.
• Started a new Ask an Expert article series.
• Evolved Rollins Magazine—expanding its reach and reshaping its focus.
• Revamped the monthly Rollins Public Health News newsletter to be more engaging and easier to consume across devices.
• Published new article types that are more web-friendly, easy-to-scan, and relevant to Rollins and trending public health topics.

Develop a training infrastructure to teach faculty, staff, and students to be trusted and authentic public health communicators.

• Launched SciComm Together, the Rollins science communication lecture series.
• Hosted the Alan Alda Science Communications 2-day workshop, training 25 faculty.
• Provided three to five individual faculty media interview prep sessions each month from Sept. 2023-July 2024.
• Conducted four in-house media trainings from Sept. 2023-Feb. 2024—training 20 faculty in live sessions and providing a recorded session to more than 100 faculty. The small-group sessions were three-hour training that included on-camera practice.
• Gave guest lectures about science communication and working with the media in Rollins classes. Taught three sessions during fall semester 2023, training approximately 200 Rollins students.

Deepen relationships with local communities, sharing Rollins’ public health findings with Georgia residents to help them advance their own health goals.

• Posted public health information to the new Rollins Instagram channel, which has an audience of over 20,000 followers and a very high level of engagement.
• Collaborated with the CDC to host a webinar on science communication for Rollins and CDC staff.
• Developed a weekly radio show and podcast on public health, Health Wanted, to be aired on WABE, an Atlanta public radio station, with potential broadcast across national markets.