To ensure health and wellbeing for all, it’s crucial to advance programs and policies that eliminate health disparities and address underlying inequities. However, the term “health equity” has become politicized, making it challenging for public health practitioners, especially in rural areas, to focus on their work. The FrameWorks Institute, in collaboration with the National Network of Public Health Institutes, collaborated to find ways to communicate effectively without triggering politicized reactions.

Their research revealed that the “Dignity reframe” is a powerful strategy for fostering understanding and support for equitable policies, especially in rural areas. In a new resource titled Talking about Health Equity in Rural Contexts, they outline this new, evidence-based reframing strategy that emphasizes the value of dignity, aiming to enhance understanding of health equity and strengthen support for equitable policies and programs, especially in rural areas:

  • Step #1: Lead with the idea of dignity– Center the ideal of honoring people’s dignity and valuing each person and their health across your communications.
  • Step #2: Use explanations to expand people’s ideas of health and health disparities– Offer an expansive explanation of health as wellbeing and highlight the importance of access to specific resources to bring equity into view.
  • Step #3: Speak to history– Build motivation for change by explaining how past injustices harmed the health of specific groups.
  • Step #4: Connect the past to the present– Link past injustices to current health inequities, using rural specific policies as an entry point to understanding.
  • Step #5: Point to the future– Use vision framing to point people toward the possibility of change.

The FrameWorks Institute and NNPHI also developed a companion toolkit designed to help public health professionals, especially those in rural areas, communicate more effectively about eliminating health disparities. This toolkit, titled “Reframing Health Disparities”, offers strategies to engage people in meaningful conversations about public health responses. The toolkit is useful for a wide range of public health professionals, including those in local, state, and federal agencies, community organizations, and academia.

The strategies are based on the science of framing and address current challenges in outreach, education, and advocacy about health equity. They are not intended for health behavior change campaigns but are suitable for various communication settings, such as public conversations, reports, media interactions, social media, and policy discussions. The toolkit provides the following resources:

  • Mindsets to Move: Identifying and shifting unhelpful mindsets
  • Starter Language: Ready-to-use phrases and language for various communication settings
  • Keeping Conversations on Track: Tips for maintaining productive discussions
  • Dignity Reframe: Emphasizing dignity in communications to build understanding and support for health equity
  • Connecting History to Health: Linking past injustices to current health disparities
  • Depicting the Diversity of Rural Communities: Representing the diversity of rural communities accurately
  • Sample Communications: Examples of letters to the editor, social media posts, and other communication formats