COVID-19 reminds us that technology and immunology often go hand in hand, and what the world needs now more than ever is breakthrough research that will troubleshoot the problems of the future. And where research meets the public is in designing health information in such a way that ultimately wins public opinion. Our greatest impact to breakthrough research is in information dissemination that is digestible to the general public, helps to speed development through early adoption, and ultimately encourages scientific innovation.

Marketing campaigns alone won’t result in behavior change. Solving our greatest public health challenges requires a combination of knowledge change, peer influence, and social reengineering in order to influence behavior change and ultimately improve health outcomes. We’ve done so through a campaign that addressed social norms around risky and unhealthy behaviors among millennials and can do so to eliminate the use of opioids, address childhood obesity, and reduce the impact of comorbidities through lifestyle change.

The mental health crisis in this country is a public health threat that if not approached like the seriousness of any other health epidemic will expose the fragility of our human capital. Up until now, mental health marketing has been approached haphazardly, but we believe that there’s an opportunity to make mental health a social norm so that no one ever has to suffer in silence. And we want to be on the frontlines of helping government create ideas around this.

There are social determinants of health and other structural issues in our society that continues to contribute to health equity particularly in Black and Hispanic communities. We believe health care should be culturally nuanced and that health care messaging should not be monolith. We have worked on health communications campaign particularly targeted by gender and by culture and also adapted by region, and we partner with government to make national health priorities culturally nuanced.