Data can undoubtedly change the way public health works. Among other benefits, improved access to data allows for increased efficiency in planning, decision-making, and spending. Data can help reach a more targeted population in health improvement efforts.

Data alone doesn’t always drive action, or emotionally engage your audience. Good data is most valuable when it can be translated and communicated to an audience able to use it, including decision-makers, community-members, researchers, advocates, healthcare providers, technology experts, and community members. Compelling content, a call-to-action, data visualizations, audience engagement and creative design can be as critical as your data.

In the fourth Web Forum of the Making Data Work for the Public’s Health Series, Dialogue4Health is proud to again partner with the California HealthCare Foundation to explore methods of creating stories that build bridges between data and the audiences who can act on it, including a look at the HealthData+ initiative, an award-winning effort to combine health stories and data.

Presentations and recording of the first three Web Forums in the data and public health series are available:

Making Data Work for the Public’s Health: The Current Total

Making Data Work for the Public’s Health: Diving into the Details

Making Data Work for the Public’s Health: Forecasting the Future