4.N. Skills building seminar: Making the elevator pitch perfect: how to convince a policymaker in less than 2 minutes

Abstract

Since a number of years, the European Public Health Association (EUPHA), the European Public Health Conferences and other oganisations, have been working hard to translate the evidence in a such a format that policymakers take notice. For example, the WHO Regional Office for Europe works on ‘telling the public health narrative' and provides factsheets and infographics, in order to effectively communicate public health messages to policymakers. Over the years, EUPHA has organised several skills building workshops on translation of evidence in the past years. At the European Public Health Conference in Glasgow 2014, so-called pitch presentations were introduced where researchers are asked to present their work in 5 minutes with maximum 5 slides (no animations), as a way to learn to present key messages from research in just a few minutes. Since 2018, EUPHA organises this elevator pitch skills-building exercise with great success. Building forward on two successful and well-attended skills-building sessions, the current workshop will be a follow-up workshop in this series and is about perfecting the elevator pitch. Lessons learned at the previous elevator pitch workshops: Have a clear ask (keep it simple).Appeal to the policymaker's own interests and priorities.Spell out how action will be beneficial for the policymaker.Be aware of upcoming elections.Built a relationship with the assistants of politicians.Considering the ‘policy window'.Make the comparison with the policy plan.Identifying the relevant stakeholders and groups affected by the problem. The importance of effectively communicating the evidence to policymakers is highlighted by infodemics, e.g. last year called out by the WHO and UN in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic with the spreading of mis- and disinformation about the pandemic. In the context of physical distancing measures, the workshop will also cover virtual tactics. As in the era of teleworking (working from home), advocacy has become a whole different kind of sports. In this skills-building session, we will select a number of abstracts from young professionals/students that have been accepted by the International Scientific Committee as posters and we will invite the presenting authors to this dare: Present your work and key messages in less than 2 minutes. In order to see whether the policymaker is convinced, we are organising a small panel of policymakers and ask them to give their feedback. Are they interested? Do they remember the key message? And if all goes well, do you get an invitation to come back and present more of your work?Key messages Being able to present your key messages anywhere, anytime is needed (including virtual tactics).Telling the public health narrative and telling a story are important skills for public health professionals to have.