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Writing Is Hard. The Public Health Writing Program Is Here to Help

The program works to create a culture among faculty, staff, and students at SPH that values writing as a process and a skill to be honed over time through deliberate practice.

The words we use—and how we use them—matter.

In the field of public health, words have the power to influence policies, alter social structures, and change behaviors. From public service announcements and policy briefs to road signs and research articles, clear writing is a critical piece of public health practice—and something that the School of Public Health has long valued.

In 1995, SPH started providing writing resources and support to masters of public health students in the Department of Global Health. In 2010, a group of faculty and staff recommended that the school build a Peer Writing Coach Program. It became one of the first peer writing programs staffed by public health students within a school of public health.

In 2016, with the emergence of the integrated core curriculum at SPH, the Peer Writing Coach Program shifted under a newly founded umbrella program, called the Public Health Writing Program.

Since then, the Public Health Writing Program has been working to expand services and create a culture among faculty, staff, and students at SPH that values writing as a process and a skill that must be honed over time through deliberate practice.

“Students come to our graduate program from diverse backgrounds and experiences, and we can’t expect them to immediately know how to write for public health,” says Jennifer Beard, clinical associate professor of global health and director of the Public Health Writing Program. “We are writing many types of specialized documents for a wide range of real audiences.”

Writing centers exist within other colleges and departments at Boston University, such as the College of Arts and Sciences or the Educational Resource Center. However, Beard says that sending SPH students to these centers was not ideal because they wouldn’t be receiving feedback from coaches who have personal experience writing about public health. “From my perspective, a writing program at SPH was what we needed most,” she says.

The peer coaches are central to the program. SPH students who received an A or an A- in the writing intensive core course, Individual, Community, and Population Health (ICPH), are eligible to apply. Peer coaches help to provide students with writing and presentation assistance and feedback at any stage in the writing process.

“Our peer coaches stand in the gap between what students want to say and what they actually have written,” says Ryann Monteiro (SPH’18), program manager in Graduate Student Life and peer coach manager. “They are not just proofreaders or editors. Their role is really to ask probing questions to help students get closer to where they want to bring their reader.” 

Peer coaches also bring an informed perspective to their meetings with students because, in many cases, they have taken the same classes or written similar papers. This experience allows them to help teach students how to use their assignment rubrics to their advantage and align their work with conversations that are happening in their classes.

Monteiro, who was a peer coach herself when she was a student at SPH, says there is often a pretty significant learning curve when students shift from their past writing experience to writing for public health, and the peer coaches’ main goal is to provide students with some assistance along the way.

To assist faculty and staff in their own writing processes, Beard created the SPH writing community—a monthly meeting where people can come to talk about what they are writing and their creative process. The 75-minute sessions are protected time that are meant to provide encouragement and accountability, as well as a consistent space to write.

“Writing is lonely,” says Beard, “so creating a space where our faculty and staff can come together to write is something that I felt was really important. Writing is also really difficult, and even though faculty are writing all of the time, we all struggle with it to some extent. I want all writers in our community to feel less alone by providing a place where we can talk openly about our writing goals and challenges and support one another.”

To continue to build a conversation around writing at SPH this fall, Beard plans to hold interactive workshops on a variety of topics, including student success with BUMC librarians, Q&A sessions for ICPH assignments, and strategies for self-editing.

The Public Health Writing Program has evolved over time, and it will continue to adapt to the changing needs of the SPH community. Beard and Monteiro say they have learned a lot throughout their time leading the program, and they hope that they can continue to shift the culture surrounding writing at SPH to view writing as a process and an art rather than simply class requirements and grades.

“Writing is not something that students can learn to do once. Every time you start a new writing project, you are creating something from nothing,” says Beard. “It takes practice and many drafts. And it’s one of the most important skills students need to work on during their time at SPH. If we can’t communicate clearly as public health professionals, we have the potential to make a pretty big mess.”

“We understand that not all students think writing is important,” says Monteiro, “but everybody thinks that their public health issue is important. And if your public health issue is important, you have to be able to communicate it.”

To stay up to date on the latest news and resources from the Public Health Writing Program, visit their new website, subscribe to their monthly newsletter, and follow them on Twitter and Instagram.