How to Respond in Times of Uncertainty with Amanda Kwong + Part 2: Key Takeaways
About This Episode
In this week's reflection, Carrie draws out three lessons from her conversation with Amanda Kwong, director of the Public Health Communications Collaborative. The throughline: when your goal is building trust, the words you choose — and the ones you're willing to let go of — matter more than most of us realize. It's a short but worth-your-time listen before you head into your week.
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Carrie Fox
Hi, I'm Carrie Fox and welcome back to Mission Forward.
This week I am reflecting on my recent conversation with Amanda Kwong. Amanda is the director of the Public Health Communications Collaborative, PHCC for short. If you haven't listened, I invite you to go back and do that. Because what Amanda shares is not just about communication strategy — and she does an exceptional job of that — it was also a masterclass in leading through language.
And here are my three top takeaways.
First, changing your words does not need to signal changing your values. Amanda and her team noticed that certain words — ones that had been standard in public health for years — had become lightning rods. And those words were getting in the way of the very trust that PHCC was trying to build. So they paused. They listened to public health communicators all over the country. They looked honestly at what was actually landing in communities and how those words were working for them. And then they made a decision to reframe. Not because their mission had shifted or they were moving away from key values that they had long held, but because their mission hadn't changed. And that's the distinction I want you to hold on to. When the goal is building trust, then sometimes the most mission-driven thing you can do is let go of a word.
Second, plain language is not dumbing information down. It is opening information up. Amanda talked about what happens when public health language becomes too academic, too insider, or too politically charged. It creates distance, and distance is the enemy of trust. Plain language does the opposite. Plain language creates access. And in public health, especially right now, access is our shared mission. What struck me most about these shifts that Amanda and her team have been making is that they didn't weaken engagement with anyone in PHCC's 40,000-plus network. Instead, they strengthened it. Communicators across the country felt more equipped and more confident and more trusting of PHCC because the messaging felt more human and more useful. And that is not a small thing.
And finally, trust is cumulative, and it is what can carry you through the tough moments. PHCC didn't start with a community. They literally built one over time, from the ground up, by consistently showing up to that community with quality resources and a commitment to honest, science-based information. Over and over again they showed up with value and purpose and resources, and that community grew. So when the language needed to shift, that trust held. The community didn't question the change. Instead, they followed Amanda's lead because the relationship and the trust had been built. And that's the message that stays with me from this conversation. You can't build trust in a moment of crisis. You build it in the ordinary moments before the crisis. When things get hard — and they will — that's what you have to draw on.
That's my reflection for this week, my friends. If you haven't heard the full episode with Amanda, I invite you to go back and listen to the entire conversation because it's remarkable. We have loved working with Amanda and PHCC these last several years, and this is a great example of why. So until next time, keep your mission moving forward and thanks for tuning in.
