Beyond the Data: The Science of Storytelling—Strategies for telling public health stories of impact

David Payne, PhD, PHLD (ABB), laboratory director for the City of Milwaukee Health Department Laboratory in Milwaukee, WI, grew up watching the television show “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.”

“In most episodes, there were a couple of quirky scientists working in a well-lit, well-funded, well-stocked lab,” he said. “They’d get handed a tube of blood and 20 minutes later, they’ve identified the murderer, know what their mom’s name was, where they went to school and what they ate for breakfast.”

Not exactly an accurate reflection of public health laboratory work, but good storytelling nonetheless. In fact, storytelling is a critical tool that can help public health laboratories show the breadth and depth of their work, as well as its impact on communities.

“People often don’t know the full scope of what we work on, including efforts like mosquito testing, food testing and disease surveillance,” said Jocelyn Hauser, PhD, D(ABMM), MLS(ASCP), public health laboratory director in the Public Health Laboratory Division of the Department of Forensic Sciences in Washington, DC. “Stories help us highlight all this work that happens behind the scenes.”

Storytelling is a critical tool that can help public health laboratories show the breadth and depth of their work, as well as its impact on communities.

Hauser has seen the impact that storytelling can have. After policymakers were invited to tour her laboratory, “they realized that we are not just an operational number,” she said. “They saw that there is much more to this lab than line items in a budget.”

Storytelling has helped boost the laboratory’s visibility and her own as director, according to Hauser. “When I go to hearings and meetings, I’m now recognized as a representative of the lab,” she said.

Being open about experiences, findings and innovations is key to increasing people’s base knowledge of laboratory science and the importance of public health work, says Amanda Kwong, director of the Public Health Communications Collaborative, a program of the Bethesda, MD-based de Beaumont Foundation.

“When the public health system is working, you don’t even notice it,” she said. “That invisibility really cuts into opportunities to be loud and proud about what we do. Effective public health storytelling starts with thinking about why someone should care about this work. What’s in it for them? How can you make your story interesting and relevant?”

Stories can help drive shifts in attitude and changes in behavior in ways that data and statistics don’t, Kwong said. “Numbers and statistics are the proof,” she said. “But to move people forward, it’s important to connect data to emotion. Storytelling is the art of speaking to the brain and to the heart.”

Today, public health laboratories have more opportunities than ever to tell their own stories. While traditional media outlets remain important in disseminating information, social media, podcasts, videos, blogs and websites now connect laboratories with varied audiences in new ways.

“People are not relying on traditional media as much as they used to,” says Diane Brodalski, communications director for the Society for Health Communication and a public health communications consultant who has worked with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). “They’re seeking information on digital platforms, reading blogs and following influencers.”

Payne, who has been in the Milwaukee laboratory director role for three years, says telling the stories of his laboratory’s work has required a mindset shift.

“It’s not something they train us for in school,” he said. “You spend so much time learning to do the science. Now, as the person who leads the team, I don’t do any science anymore—I talk to people about science. I love doing that, but it is a very big change.”

He jokingly refers to his department’s communications team as his “designated normies.”

“They’re people who have never sat at a bench or held a pipette, but they read the newspaper every day,” he said. “I’ll go to them with an idea and say, ‘Hey, I think this is neat. Would a normal person think this is neat?’ They may say no, yes or recommend approaching the topic in a way I hadn’t thought about.”

Hauser said that telling effective stories often means seeing “routine” laboratory work in a new way. She also relies on her laboratory’s embedded public information officer (PIO) to help identify stories that can best showcase the work of laboratorians.

“I’m a scientist,” she said. “We’re not really trained to talk about ourselves and what we do. Our PIO points out stories and helps me see the value of talking about the work we do, rather than just glossing over it and thinking, ‘Oh, we do that every day.’”

Payne said he likes to focus on laboratory efforts that have “invisible” impact. This is the laboratory work where the people who benefit from it don’t always know how they benefit, such as wastewater monitoring or air monitoring, he said.

“We’re currently looking at respiratory pathogens in our public schools—just in the air, not in any specific patients or kids,” he said. “That’s something that benefits everybody in the school and in the students’ families, as well as all their neighbors. It’s an effort that helps the whole community and they’ve never heard about it. Stories like that, where people don’t necessarily know the benefits they’re getting from the laboratory’s work, are the ones I really like.”

Payne also cited the City of Milwaukee Health Department Wastewater Dashboard as an example of impact storytelling. The dashboard uses a stoplight warning system as a visual to help people understand how levels of COVID, respiratory syncytial virus, influenza A and influenza B are changing in their community. Each level—green (low), yellow (moderate) and red (high)—includes appropriate health recommendations people may take to protect themselves at specific levels of disease activity.

The dashboard includes maps that show actual data, trend lines and data points for Milwaukee proper and its suburbs. “This tool shows the public we know what we’re talking about and here’s what it means for them,” Payne said. “Everyone has a different risk tolerance and different circumstances. We put information in people’s hands and let them make their own decisions on it. That information is important for building trust.”

Trust is critical in public health storytelling. Brodalski noted that when a story is difficult or risk is evolving, it’s important to have the right messenger. “If there’s someone in the organization who has a connection with the audience and can speak with empathy, that’s important for building trust,” she said. “It’s also important to say, ‘This is what we know, this is what we don’t know, and this is what we’re working on.’”

Public health laboratories also need to consider how they talk about science and uncertainty, especially when telling stories to audiences that may not have a good understanding of basic science.

“That’s a really important part of storytelling,” Payne said. “We need to learn to find the balance between ‘I am confident in this and it might change, but for right now, the very best we know is this’ and ‘Tomorrow, if we find something different, we should do that.’”

Effective public health storytelling starts with thinking about why someone should care about this work. What's in it for them? How can you make your story interesting and relevant?"

Payne said that too often in public health, doing the job right means the work of laboratory teams remains invisible.

“I’d be lying if I said that resources aren’t a part of the discussion,” Payne said. “People are happier when their tax dollars go to something they understand and not to some shadowy group of government nerds. But there’s a lot more to it than that. Telling stories of our work also helps the people who work here feel seen. We are the people behind the curtain making everything happen, which is fun, but is also sometimes a little bit lonely.”

During tours, Payne highlights the fact that public health laboratories include both scientists and nonscientists. “There are almost as many people off the bench supporting the scientists as there are scientists on the bench,” he said. “I try to emphasize how much goes into that test result that gets pushed to your MyChart. That yes or no result is often the work of a dozen people.”

Profiling individual scientists and highlighting the work of special laboratory teams can be rich sources of stories. Brodalski suggested telling stories of how scientists came to their position and the comprehensive training they completed to prepare them for the role. “There needs to be a personal face to this important work,” she said.

Payne said he uses images to tell stories, where appropriate. In a prior role, he shared a picture of a mobile COVID testing truck parked in front of a convent, where a group of nuns dedicated themselves to helping people with terminal disease. His goal? To tell a story that went beyond statistics and positive predictive values.

“We went there to test for COVID because of an exposure concern and we wanted to make sure that the sisters were not spreading the virus to the people they were there to take care of,” he said. “That picture of the truck in front of the convent stuck with people in a way that statistics don’t. The key is making it a human story that involves numbers instead of a number story about people.”

Hauser said it is important for public health laboratories to convey information about their work to outside people in ways they can understand. “My team likes to talk about the platform and methodology they’re using,” she said. “But we need to bring it back to why this work is important to the person hearing the story.”

Payne agreed.

“It’s easy for us scientists to geek out and say, ‘We run a fourth-generation HIV antigen antibody combo test, and that’s really cool,’” he said. “But what people really care about is that onsite at our sexual health clinic, we’re able to run HIV screening tests and return results so fast that the patient is still in the room with the nurse when they get those results and can get connected to care. That’s impactful.”

Great public health storytelling also has other important impacts — including bringing new scientists into public health laboratories.

“It helps people come into the profession,” Hauser said. “I didn’t even know about lab science until well after I’d graduated from college. Telling these stories helps bring the profession to light. When people see scientists in their lab coats doing the actual work, I think they better understand the seriousness of this work.”