Last week, the Global Health Advocacy Incubator (GHAI) hosted a webinar to launch our first-ever Research for Advocacy Action Guide, a resource containing the key strategies our teams have used in advocacy campaigns. The launch event brought together global experts to share insights on the role of research to inform policy and drive change in public health.
Moderated by Shani Winterstein, Director of Capacity Strengthening at GHAI, and Meg Riordan, the Vice President for Research of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids’s (CTFK) U.S. program, the panel included Munawar Hussain (Food and Nutrition, GHAI, Pakistan), Dr. Anita Kaluba (Zambia Global Tobacco Control, CTFK,) and Julianne Hopper (Overdose Prevention Initiative, GHAI, U.S.).
Meg Riordan introduced the guide, incorporating the fundamental role research plays in policy advocacy, and the five elements that our research teams use to inform advocacy:
1) serve as an information resource
2) provide technical assistance
3) package and disseminate data
4) conduct original research
5) build relationships with researchers
Advocates can use the guide to dive deeper into these five strategies and read about case studies from our team and our partners. Panelists shared examples of how research has been used across campaigns globally.
Munawar Hussian demonstrated how public opinion polling helped to strengthen the campaign to raise sweetened beverage taxes in Pakistan. The data collected informed various communications and advocacy materials. Together with other advocacy strategies, the campaign was successful into raising taxes on sweetened beverages.
Dr. Anita Kaluba shared how youth efforts to capture tobacco marketing photos around schools helped to provide necessary data to convince policymakers that comprehensive tobacco advertising, sponsorship and promotion laws are needed in Zambia. Her presentation showed both quantitative data and photos captured during the “Big Tobacco, Tiny Targets” effort.
Julianne Hopper illustrated how she and her team have created fact sheets to serve as an information resource for U.S. Congress members, to highlight how the Mainstreaming Addiction Treatment (MAT) Act would provide support to decrease deaths due to overdoses. She illustrated how she has developed fact sheets, including some of the data sources used. Further, she showed how this data have led to policy impact, in this case, the signing of the MAT Act in 2023.
These case studies and others are available in the Research for Advocacy Action Guide, which you can read and download here. Devex, in partnership with GHAI’s Meg Riordan, Shani Winterstein and Anita Kaluba, also captured four key themes from our guide in a new Op Ed that you can read here. And watch the recap of the webinar below:
The Global Health Advocacy Incubator (GHAI) developed this Sweetened Beverages Tax Position Paper as a guide on how to explicitly design SB taxes to improve population health. The paper recommends ways to ensure that the tax will make all unhealthy drinks less affordable, reduce their consumption over time and result in a decrease in diet-related diseases. It urges governments to reinvest the revenue towards health promotion to further its health and equity impact. It argues that there is a missed opportunity if governments do not design strong SB taxes primed to reach their intended public health potential.
