Explaining Prevention to the Masses

I watched the Connecting Prevention to the People: Voter Attitudes, Prevention Messaging and Where the Prevention Fund Stands webinar this afternoon.  Thought I'd share the biggest takeaway that I got, which is how to communicate the benefit of prevention to the public.  These are some messages/frames that have tested well with the public:

1. Making healthy choices easier choices.
2. A healthier America.  Improving the health of all Americans.
3. How active we are and what we eat are highly personal decisions.  But these decisions are heavily influenced by the world around us.
4. This generation of kids is on track to live less healthy, shorter lives than their parents, but we can turn that around.
5. Investing in prevention will save money, and it has real value as a cost-effective, common-sense way to keep people healthy and improve their quality of life.
6. Prevention saves lives, reduces healthcare costs, and makes the country a healthier, more productive place.  
7. Return on investment
8. Prevention is about health care vs. sick care.
9. Health starts where we live, learn, work, and play (to help talk about social determinants).  
10. Proven prevention programs spare people from needless suffering and trips to the doctor's office.
11. Connecting health at the doctor's office with ways to stay healthy beyond the doctor's office (people do not make the clinical vs. community distinction, see them working together).
12. Partnerships: public health departments play a crucial role as chief health strategists for communicates  but they cannot do all that is needed on their own.  To be effective in improving health in neighborhoods, workplaces, and schools, strategies must involve a series of commonsense partnerships.
13. Using specific examples and real results (aka using story!)

In a similar vein, I grabbed a screenshot of how to frame support for increasing investment in prevention efforts:

These are all pretty high, but its cool to see that people are more likely to respond positively to messages about youth and their future as opposed to the economy and saving money.

The webinar will be archived, but it isn't yet.  I assume you'll be able to get to it from this link to the original webinar.