Successful Public Health Advocacy - Lessons Learned from Massachusetts Legislators

This concise volume guides public health advocates on how to successfully advocate for their cause, strengthen their messaging and communication strategies, build coalitions, and gather political allies.

In the book, the author shares lessons learned from an exploratory study in which key legislators from the Massachusetts General Court (legislature) were interviewed to determine their level of awareness and knowledge regarding health disparities. Racial and ethnic disparities in health are a major concern for citizens, states, and the nation and are important to study and understand to strategically address and eliminate such inequities. Through these lessons, public health advocates gain an understanding of whether and how factors affect knowledge and awareness of health disparities and learn to communicate more effectively with legislators, key stakeholders, and other decision-makers. The brief also features 'Notes from the Field' from those working in the 'trenches' that highlight different perspectives on health disparities and provide first-hand advice for advocates hoping to close the disparities gaps and create a more equitable nation for all.  

Successful Public Health Advocacy is a relevant resource for advocates, as well as students, in public health, public policy, and related fields who wish to gain a better understanding on how legislators gather their health information for policy-making or constituent work and apply this data to develop and implement effective public health advocacy campaigns.  

Chris Chanyasulkit, PhD, MPH, is an Executive Board member of the American Public Health Association (APHA) and previously served as a gubernatorial appointee to both the Massachusetts Asian American Commission and the Commission on the Status of Women. In that capacity, she advocated for the needs of Asian Americans and women throughout the Commonwealth. Dr. Chanyasulkit co-edited the books HIV/AIDS Treatment in Resource Poor Countries: Public Health Challenges and the Handbook of Global Tuberculosis Control: Practices and Challenges, and served as managing editor for the book Emerging Infections in Asia (all published with Springer). She is grounded in a strong belief in eliminating the structural barriers to equity for vulnerable populations. This belief has informed her extensive work in national, state, and local levels of public health, health care, public policy, government relations, and the higher education field.