“Public health constantly struggles to hold infectious diseases at bay, to change lifestyle behaviors, and to find enough money to do these and many other jobs.”As Dr. Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization spoke at the 69th World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland, on May 23, 2016, she demonstrated how important organization is in public speaking. Dr. Chan, a physician of joint Chinese and Canadian nationality, illustrated just how crucial the organizational structure of a speech is to informing and persuading people.
Her speech is still timely today, as public health authorities at this very moment struggle to make the public accept basic public health measures such as vaccination and social distancing to cope with endemic and deadly COVID-19 and RSV viruses that devastate the population. Indeed, many nations, including the United States, continue to suffer from needless public health disasters.
Chan Used Organization to Persuade the Audience
Her speech’s organizational structure brilliantly offered the audience positive thoughts about public health, which, in turn, gave a positive approach to the great public health challenges that lay ahead. She started with public health’s recent accomplishments, warned of current public health threats, and finally returned to a hopeful approach to public health. Her speech structure helped show that, since public health has triumphed in the past, we can believe that it can help us in the future.
Chan Stated the Problem
Starting her speech, Dr. Chan briefly noted that public health faces an endless battle for resources and public acceptance. In her speech, she made a two-fold point: public health measures have greatly improved human lives across the world, and yet the changing world landscape poses increasingly dire public health threats.
Chan Reviewed Public Health’s Triumphs
Dr. Chan immediately moved to public health triumphs: “Sometimes,” she said, “we need to step back—we need to step back and celebrate.”
Yes, she was right. Since public health has faced constant public and political pushback—for centuries—it is important to look at what has been accomplished. Wisely, Dr. Chan talked only about the most recent public health accomplishments. She began with the Millennium Development Goals, a United Nations program to wipe out extreme poverty, reduce the deaths of young children, improve childbirth safety, and fight endemic contagious diseases, while improving the environment. These were truly ambitious goals. Dr. Chan said:
“Commitment to the Millennium Development Goals brought focus, energy, creative innovation, and above all money to bear on some of the biggest health challenges that marred the start of this century.”
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| Delivery of Malaria Treatment |
“We can celebrate the 19,000 fewer children dying every day, the 44% drop in maternal mortality, and the 85% of tuberculosis cases that are successfully cured.These are stunning accomplishments from the multinational public health measures. Indeed, seeking to gain increased support for public health, Dr. Chan forcefully reminded the audience that cooperative efforts have brought so much that is good.
“Africa in particular can celebrate the 60% decline in malaria mortality, especially since the African Leaders Malaria Alliance, supported by partners, did so much to make this happen.”
WHO's Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus Spoke for Public Health in a Positive Way During His Coronavirus Briefing
Dr. Chan’s message was just one speech to one audience, but she modeled how to overcome our thought barriers and improve public health.
In a more general way, public speakers often underestimate how important it is to organize a speech psychologically. In this case, Dr. Chan led her audience through a psychological process: past triumphs, present despair, and (ending with a call to action), future triumphs. She showed her audience that there was a way to overcome the massive public health threats that the world faces. Did the world listen in 2016? Are we listening today?
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P.S. Dr. Margaret Chan has been involved in occasional political controversies. That might be inevitable for someone of her prestige and influence, yet the public often focuses on political issues while ignoring the massively important lessons that she was trying to teach.
Also, while Dr. Chan gave such a thoughtful speech, American public health officials have, in recent years, done a mostly terrible job of communicating with the public. I’ll see if I can write about that in a future post.
Thanks to the good people at AmericanRhetoric.com, a website founded by my late classmate Dr. Martin J. Medhurst, for finding and posting this important speech.
The Need for International Efforts
In the modern world, Dr. Chan insisted, public health threats rarely remain in any single region. Worldwide effort is therefore the only solution. She pointed out that air pollution drifts across the world, while superbugs travel with international commerce, and unhealthy foods are marketed internationally. The effects can be striking:
Yet, Let Us Move Forward
Still, consistent with her positive theme, Dr. Chan concluded her speech, not by wallowing in the horrors of modern public health failures, but by, once again, pointing to the ways in which advanced public health can continue to save millions upon millions of human lives:
The Organization Theme
This speech represented a psychological approach to rhetorical organization. The speaker began by praising public health's massive recent accomplishments. It was her deliberate rhetorical choice to emphasize, not historical triumphs like the polio vaccine, but the most recent triumphs in overcoming disease. The bulk of her speech revealed the public health problems that the world faces today—problems exacerbated by poor international policy decisions. She did not shy away from problems that her own nation, China itself, had produced, like excessive burning of fossil fuels. She ended on a positive note, urging the audience to move forward.
Public health depends on public attitudes. Today, my own nation, the United States of America, has been ravaged by the novel coronavirus, while much of its population succumbs to bizarre conspiracy theories, refusing to accept vaccination and other basic public health measures. The United States ranks near the bottom of the industrialized world for maternal and child mortality, and, worse, we seem to be declining. Shockingly, The Commonwealth Fund notes that, “The U.S. has the highest maternal mortality rate among developed countries.” The biggest problem in public health is communication and persuasion—not science (the scientists are doing their jobs).
In the modern world, Dr. Chan insisted, public health threats rarely remain in any single region. Worldwide effort is therefore the only solution. She pointed out that air pollution drifts across the world, while superbugs travel with international commerce, and unhealthy foods are marketed internationally. The effects can be striking:
“Few health threats are local anymore. And few health threats can be managed by the health sector acting alone.”Dr. Chan then focused on the hardest issue of all, the human-caused disasters that spread poor health across the world:
“As the international community enters the era of sustainable development, the global health landscape is being shaped by 3 slow-motion disasters: a changing climate, the failure of more and more mainstay antimicrobials, and the rise of chronic noncommunicable diseases as the leading killers worldwide.”Refusing to call these disasters the natural consequence of human growth or biological evolution, Dr. Chan instead reminded the audience that these public health concerns were the consequences of short-term economic policies:
“These are not natural disasters. They are man-made disasters created by policies that place economic interests above concerns about the well-being of human lives and the planet that sustains them.”For example, she noted that food companies make more money from processed foods than from fresh produce, and that fossil fuels generate great wealth in producing nations. Yet, as she had shown, these economic factors contribute to ongoing public health failures.
Yet, Let Us Move Forward
Still, consistent with her positive theme, Dr. Chan concluded her speech, not by wallowing in the horrors of modern public health failures, but by, once again, pointing to the ways in which advanced public health can continue to save millions upon millions of human lives:
“WHO, together with its multiple partners, is poised to save many more millions of lives. I ask you to remember this purpose as we go through an agenda that can mean so much for the future.”
The Organization Theme
This speech represented a psychological approach to rhetorical organization. The speaker began by praising public health's massive recent accomplishments. It was her deliberate rhetorical choice to emphasize, not historical triumphs like the polio vaccine, but the most recent triumphs in overcoming disease. The bulk of her speech revealed the public health problems that the world faces today—problems exacerbated by poor international policy decisions. She did not shy away from problems that her own nation, China itself, had produced, like excessive burning of fossil fuels. She ended on a positive note, urging the audience to move forward.
Public health depends on public attitudes. Today, my own nation, the United States of America, has been ravaged by the novel coronavirus, while much of its population succumbs to bizarre conspiracy theories, refusing to accept vaccination and other basic public health measures. The United States ranks near the bottom of the industrialized world for maternal and child mortality, and, worse, we seem to be declining. Shockingly, The Commonwealth Fund notes that, “The U.S. has the highest maternal mortality rate among developed countries.” The biggest problem in public health is communication and persuasion—not science (the scientists are doing their jobs).
Dr. Chan’s message was just one speech to one audience, but she modeled how to overcome our thought barriers and improve public health.
In a more general way, public speakers often underestimate how important it is to organize a speech psychologically. In this case, Dr. Chan led her audience through a psychological process: past triumphs, present despair, and (ending with a call to action), future triumphs. She showed her audience that there was a way to overcome the massive public health threats that the world faces. Did the world listen in 2016? Are we listening today?
By William D. Harpine
_______________
P.S. Dr. Margaret Chan has been involved in occasional political controversies. That might be inevitable for someone of her prestige and influence, yet the public often focuses on political issues while ignoring the massively important lessons that she was trying to teach.
Also, while Dr. Chan gave such a thoughtful speech, American public health officials have, in recent years, done a mostly terrible job of communicating with the public. I’ll see if I can write about that in a future post.
Thanks to the good people at AmericanRhetoric.com, a website founded by my late classmate Dr. Martin J. Medhurst, for finding and posting this important speech.
Copyright 2024, William D. Harpine
Image: United States Department of Health and Human Services, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
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