APHA Action Board Chair s Report for 2017 Catherine Troisi, Ph.D. Action Board Chair Submitted: 10/16/2017 I. Overview APHA s Action Board helps coordinate the association s grassroots and grasstops advocacy activities and improves participation in advocacy initiatives among the association s Sections, SPIGS, Caucuses, state Affiliates and other components. The Action Board also serves to ensure that APHA s policy statements remain timely and relevant. Members of the Action Board serve for a three-year term and help engage the units they represent to take action on APHA s legislative priorities. In carrying out its responsibilities, the Action Board collaborates with the leadership and membership of the association s other units and its state Affiliates. In addition, the chair of the Action Board and three of his/her designees serve as members of the Joint Policy Committee. The structure of the Action Board was revised this year to respond to changes in how policies will be archived, thus negating the need for a Policy Committee. Four workgroups were formed, Media, Annual Meeting, Policy, and Direct Advocacy. II. Workgroup Activities: The Media Work Group (Rosie Mae Henson, Facilitator) This workgroup explored a number of ways to support the Action Board's engagement and promotion of media based advocacy among the board and among components. Our main initiative was a Social Media Needs Assessment where we developed and distributed a survey to better understand whether components are using social media to engage in public health advocacy, and their barriers and facilitators to doing so. We presented these findings to the Board, and received resources in return from APHA in response to this component feedback in order to better support component engagement in social media advocacy. 1
Other activities throughout the year included drafting email templates for AB members to send to their components to encourage engagement in media advocacy, sharing the resource Medium where members can post online editorials if they cannot get access to traditional media sources, and exploring other potential avenues of media engagement (e.g. AB twitter handle, AB engagement with the Nation's Health). Annual Meeting Workgroup (Katherine Sutlowi, Facilitator) The Action Board's Annual Meeting Workgroup organized the 2017 "Mobilizing a Public Health Campaign" session for the APHA Annual Meeting. Considering this year's overall focus on climate change, the session focusing on mobilizing advocates to elevate the issue of climate change in their communities. In partnership with the Environment Section, speakers were identified to help participants learn how to stimulate public action on climate change. Moderation will be from the Environment Section Chair. Panelists will provide participants with an overview of the advocacy process utilized, the stakeholders involved, campaign elements, a description of the desired and actual outcome of the advocacy campaign and the lessons learned. Policy Statement Work Group (Mary Morrissey, Facilitator) The workgroup held conference calls throughout the year to foster and support a highly participatory process among the various units of APHA represented in the Work Group. Discussion focused on identifying key considerations that may influence participation in the policy statement review process across the various APHA units. A consensus was reached to develop and disseminate a pilot survey seeking more structured feedback about the process. That work was completed during the summer. A summary of the data collected will be ready for the Action Board meeting on Wednesday, November 8th. Direct Advocacy Workgroup (Shirley Orr, Facilitator) Over the past year, the APHA Action Board Direct Advocacy Workgroup members worked to engage their respective units in direct advocacy for issues aligned with APHA policy priorities. The top priority for direct advocacy was to support and protect the Affordable Care Act and the Prevention and Public Health Fund, in the face of multiple attempts to repeal the ACA following the 2016 election. Members of APHA and its affiliates responded with robust engagement with members of congress, along with 2
opinion pieces in print media. The direct advocacy efforts of APHA along with our public health system partners no doubt contributed to the failure of all congressional attempts to repeal the ACA. II. Communications Bimonthly conference call meetings were held during the year for planning purposes and to update members on action items. Internal communications were once again strengthened through electronic meeting invitations, agendas, and meeting minutes in order to keep all members informed of activities, roles and responsibilities. Workgroup reports were due the months between calls. III. Advocacy Activities 1. At the 2017 mid-year meeting in Washington, D.C. a. Communications professionals from APHA provided trainings on how to talk about public health issues. b. Action Board members made Capitol Hill visits to educate their respective legislators on these important issues during the 2017 Action Board mid-year meeting in Washington DC. c. Members were encouraged to use Twitter to post their success stories and develop a social media presence for public health advocacy. 2. Action Board members were encouraged to submit letters to the editor and opinion editorials on priority topics to their local newspapers and encourage sections to do so as well. Published pieces were shared on the APHA website. At least 24 LTE and Op-Eds written by APHA members were published during 2017 (through Oct 15). 3. The Action Board disseminated information about the Public Health Action (PHACT) campaign to APHA components, and their members. a. Tools on the PHACT website were promoted. b. Members were encouraged to reach out to legislators at town hall meetings, email, phone calls, and tweets. In addition, they were encouraged to write letters to the editor, opinion editorials to local media on these topics. c. A Google document was kept to record advocacy activities. 4. Action Board members sent out reminders to sections, SPIG s, affiliates, and caucuses to encourage responses to APHA Action Alerts throughout the year. 3
5. Action Board members continue to reach out to component members to advise them of the opportunities to attend the Advocacy Track sessions and Advocacy Training for Leaders during the APHA Annual Meeting in Denver. IV. Auto-Archiving At the 2013 Annual Meeting, the Governing Council of APHA asked the Action Board to develop an autoarchiving process for policy statements without detail of process and last year suggested we shift to a sunsetting provision for older policies with provisions for updating. Our main goal is to return the Action Board and its members to dedicate their full attention to its mission of action. Policies that were identified for archiving 2 years ago and were not updated will now be auto archived. There is also a list for 2018 that will be autoarchived next year if they are not updated. Beginning in 2019, policy statements adopted 20 or more years ago, will automatically archive unless a policy statement scheduled for archiving is deemed current after a thorough review by the Science Board and approved to remain as active by the Governing Council. In order to remain active, the science, references and action steps in the policy statement must be current. A list of these policies is included with identified policy gaps on the APHA website. Only one of the twelve proposed auto-archived statements was updated. V. Joint Policy Committee The Joint Policy Committee reviewed 21 policy statement proposals for 2017. None of the six policy gap areas received a policy proposal in response. The JPC continued its practice of providing detailed point-by-point feedback to authors in a grid/table format. The grid displays the JPC s comments and then provides space for authors to respond to the JPC s comments. This structure allows JPC reviewers to maintain consistency in reviews. Of the 21 proposed new policy statements reviewed at the mid-year meeting, one received a positive assessment, 12 received a conditional assessment, and eight received a negative assessment at the initial review (a total of 6 policy statements received negative reviews in 2016). 4
In the past, proposals receiving a negative assessment were not reviewed by the JPC. However, in 2016, the Governing Council voted to change that policy so that authors of proposals receiving a negative assessment could resubmit for rereview by the JPC if the JPC was notified of their intent within two weeks of receiving the outcome of the initial review. Of the eight policies receiving a negative assessment this year, two chose to resubmit. A total of 14 proposals were received for rereview in August. Upon rereview, the JPC recommended two proposals receive a negative assessment (the original two negatively assessed proposals) and that they not be considered at the Annual Meeting. Of the other proposals resubmitted, eight received a conditional assessment, and four, a positive assessment. This brings the total number of proposals to be heard at the public hearings at the Annual Meeting to 15 (this includes the one proposal that received a positive assessment in May and thus did not need to be resubmitted). Those policy statements meeting JPC criteria will be placed on the consent agenda and recommended for adoption by the Governing Council. The JPC will also recommend to Governing Council that the two negative proposals and any others that do not meet the JPC s criteria not be adopted. VI. Executive Board The Action Board Chair serves as an ex officio member of the APHA Executive Board. The Executive Board worked on the following issues: Strategized about ways to increase membership Strategized about ways to engage the Sections, SPIGs, Caucuses and Affiliates Strategized about ways to engage student members and provide the student members with better representation Work continues on the APHA Strategic Plan (Goal: Create the Healthiest Nation in One Generation) APHA budget and financial solvency The Committee on Social Responsibility (CSR) continues to revise and hone criteria for screening potential corporate and foundation donors. 5