Teaching Public Health Writing

Clear, concise, engaging writing is critically important to public health practice. The Covid-19 pandemic has repeatedly thrown this fact into stark relief. No matter how hard we try, with the best intentions and evidence, public health professionals and researchers have struggled to communicate clear messages to the many audiences looking for information. The result has often been resistance, miscommunication, and deepening political division.

Teaching Public Health Writing is a call to action for schools and programs of public health. Jennifer Beard, drawing on her interdisciplinary background in population health and the humanities, argues that writing practice and mentoring need to be central components of the graduate and undergraduate public health curriculum. Public health students are learning to translate complex technical content from a wide array of disciplines into engaging documents for vastly different audiences. This learning experience can be time-consuming and anxiety-inducing. Teaching Public Health Writing--the first book in the new Teaching Public Health instructor series--prompts educators at every level to rethink the place of writing in public health education.

Using composition and public health theory, narrative examples, and detailed instructions from writing assignments used in public health classrooms across many disciplines and genres, Teaching Public Health Writing offers instructors a helpful guide to refresh or redesign in-course writing instruction and assignments. It ensures the next generation of public health professionals have the tools they need to communicate confidently and effectively.

Jennifer Beard, PhD, MA, MPH, is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Global Health at Boston University School of Public Health where she is the Director of the Public Health Writing Program. She is an Assistant Director of Narrative in the BU Center for Antiracist Research, the
Associate Editor of Public Health Post, and a co-founder of the Global Health Storytelling Program.

Series Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgments

Introduction

PART 1: THEORY AND PRACTICAL STRATEGIES

CHAPTER 1. Writing Across the Life Course

CHAPTER 2. When You Can't Remove the Pump Handle, Reduce Harm

CHAPTER 3. Designing Writing Assignments for Public Health Classes

CHAPTER 4. Assessment Involves Much More Than Assigning a Grade

PART 2: ANTHOLOGY OF WRITING ASSIGNMENTS

CHAPTER 5. Examples of Public Health Writing Assignments

Epilogue