UNC Gillings Public Health Communications Fellowship

About the Fellowship
Two first-year MPH students will be selected to spend time cultivating the craft of public health communications under the direction of the communications and marketing unit at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. Selected fellows will work specifically with local health departments in North Carolina’s Region 7, including the counties of Franklin, Granville-Vance, Johnston, Nash, Wake, Warren and Wilson.

Writing workshops and editorial meetings, monthly individual check-ins and group opportunities form the basis for the fellowship’s supportive and collaborative culture. Fellows pitch research and post ideas based on journal articles, profile people affected by public health work, write about or film programs and services offered, explore gaps, etc.

Fellows do not need an extensive writing background, only a desire to establish a regular writing and communications practice, and a willingness to learn the Gillings unique style and ambition to grow as a public health communicator.

Goals of the Fellowship:

• Create an overall communications plan that addresses the work of local health departments.
• Convene and manage a community of practice for public health communications made up of individual staff members and contributors across NC doing the work of public health communications.
• Maintain a web-based inventory of best-practice in communications about local public health.
• Create a longitudinal multimedia story focusing on one or more public health concerns and the solutions implanted to mitigate them.
• Promote the role of public health workers at the local level, shining a light on all the different roles, responsibilities and outcomes.
• Support the NC Association of Local Health Directors Workgroup on Communications and stay in contact with regional workforce development leads in meetings on the third Wednesday of the month. (N.B. This may require travel to Raleigh.)

Eligibility
Applicants must be current first-year MPH students at the Gillings School of Global Public Health.

Stipend and Tuition Support for the 2023-2024 Academic Year
A monthly stipend and the opportunity for tuition support accompanies the fellowship.

Deadline
September 15, 2023

Inclusive Excellence
At the Gillings School, we are driven by our mission to improve public health, promote individual well-being and eliminate health inequities across NC and around the world. We understand the critical need for intentional diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. We welcome, value and learn from individual differences and perspectives, and we maintain a welcoming, supportive educational and workplace climate for all our students, staff and faculty members.

To learn more about the Gillings School’s purposeful efforts, please visit our Inclusive Excellence pages.

Questions
If you have any questions, please contact us at sphcomm@unc.edu.