834: AI & PH Comms, HPAI Symposium Still Relevant

SUMMER JOHNSON: 

This is the award-winning Public Health Review Morning Edition for Friday, January 31, 2025. I'm Summer Johnson. Now, today's news from the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.

ROBERT JENNINGS: 

AI isn't going anywhere. So, it needs to be embraced. The technology needs to be embraced.

JOHNSON: 

That's Robert Jennings, who leads the National Public Health Information Coalition, or NPHIC. Jennings and his team are currently navigating the escalation of AI use in communications.

JENNINGS: 

We really also need to be looking at how to use AI to help in our own communication efforts. How can it better improve our messaging? How can we be more targeted in our efforts to reach people and understand their needs and do it in a way that resonates with them? So, artificial intelligence does have an opportunity for us to do good work.

JOHNSON: 

His organization supports public health communicators, and it will release guidance on the use of AI this year.

JENNINGS: 

NPHIC is working with an organization called Discourse Labs and public health communication professionals and other public health communicators from around the country to develop a set of guidelines on the ethical use of AI in public health communication so these guidelines are going to be rolled out in 2025 we've been working on them for about a year, and yes, we will be holding workshops and webinars.

JOHNSON: 

Jennings hopes the guidelines will help communicators navigate all the new information and use it wisely.

JENNINGS: 

And it's just practical ways that if you're looking to implement AI tools within your organizations. This will give you practical ways, through case studies and through research and white papers, we've done the work, so now it's just a matter of being able to take these guidelines and apply them to your particular area. So, we will be rolling that out in 2025.

JOHNSON: 

Learn more about the latest tactics, messages, and AI at the annual National Conference on Health Communication, Marketing, and Media. NPHIC, along with the CDC and the public health communications collaborative, puts on the conference. It will be held July 28 through the 30 this year in Atlanta. For more information on that conference and more of Jennings' interview on his communications predictions for 2025 that aired yesterday, you can use the link in the show notes.

One of the most popular ASTHO events in 2024 was the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Scientific Symposium. Dr. Scott Harris, ASTHO president and the state health officer for the Alabama Department of Public Health, reflects on the huge response to this symposium.

SCOTT HARRIS: 

So, in this case, we had really everybody who mattered, everybody who was involved in the response in any way, whether it was human medicine, whether it was agriculture, whether it was the emergency preparedness type, response, government oversight, all of these people were all on the call at the same time, hearing each other talk.

JOHNSON: 

Harris believes it was the collaboration of the different disciplines that made the symposium so popular.

HARRIS: 

It just created a lot more opportunity to learn, to get a full picture. And I- that's, you know, unfortunately, that's a little bit unusual for the types of calls that we sometimes have.

JOHNSON: 

Harris also says HPAI is still an ongoing event to monitor, making the information from the symposium relevant today.

HARRIS: 

I think there's still a, you know, significant level of concern among public health officials and agriculture officials as well, because we just don't know what the future is going to hold. The risk to the general public is still felt to be very low, but the risk to agricultural workers, particularly dairy workers and poultry workers, is somewhat higher than that.

JOHNSON: 

Learn more about the HPAI symposium by clicking the link in the show notes.

Also, make sure to check out the application for the Leadership Exchange for Adolescent Health Promotion Plus community of practice. You can be involved and share your expertise in the development of a sustainable framework to address adolescent health through the schools. Learn more and apply today when you click the link in the show notes.

Finally, this morning, make sure to keep an ear out for this newscast. On Tuesday of next week, ASTHO member and the Commissioner of Connecticut's Department of Public Health, Dr. Manisha Juthani, will be on the newscast discussing building a sustainable public health workforce infrastructure. You won't want to miss it.

That'll do it for today, we're back on Monday morning with more ASTHO news and information. I'm Summer Johnson, you're listening to the award-winning Public Health Review Morning Edition. Have a great weekend.