Enhancing Advocacy Skills in Public Health: Addressing Challenges and Training Needs (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: A health in all policies approach is important in addressing the wider determinants of health and public health plays an important role in advocating for health to be considered by policies across sectors. Advocacy is a core function of public health but we need to better understand the experiences, challenges, opportunities and resources required for effective advocacy by public health professionals. Our paper explores the professional skills, characteristics and learning needs of public health practitioners advocating for the restriction of advertising of high-fat salt and sugar products on council-owned spaces across a region of England. We carried out a series of interviews over a 10-month period and focus groups with policy advocates from 10 local authorities from a regional community of improvement. Through this we learnt that these practitioners felt inexperienced as policy advocates particularly within an ideologically and commercially sensitive area of policy change such as this. They drew on a complex set of attributes including politically astute interpersonal skills, determination and resilience, integrity, policy subject and policy process expertise and an ability to work autonomously. They also identified the need for organisational permission for them to act in an advocacy role. There was a feeling that more formal training and professional development were needed but that learning through experience was important and that informal learning opportunities should be provided including role modelling and mentoring. In conclusion this paper highlights that public health practitioners value their role as policy advocates but feel lacking in experience, training and readiness for a role which they see as distinct from other public health strategies, particularly when undertaken in a sensitive area of policy change. More formal training should be offered but this should be complemented by locally developed informal opportunities and importantly the public health profession should advocate for greater understanding, acceptance and trust in the advocacy role of practitioners.