Communication experts shared their experiences, best practices, and effective ways to engage audience during the 36th Philippine Council for Health Research and Development (PCHRD) Anniversary Session – Engaged: Communicating Health Research in Everyday Language at the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC) on 16 March 2018.

Thirty-five (35) Philippine National Health Research System (PNHRS) research utilization committee members from regional health research and development consortia learned how to effectively communicate health research and improve audience engagement through use of simpler language and laymanized terms.

Dr. Cecilia Acuin, Senior Scientist of the International Rice Research Institute and Chair of the Research Utilization Committee of the Philippine National Health Research System (PNHRS) started the session by giving a presentation on Trust in Science: The Role of Communication. She emphasized the responsibility of health research communicators in developing and maintaining trust with their audience by addressing misconceptions and supporting statements with facts.

Mr. James Mendoza, Chief Executive Officer of Maroon Studios, discussed website content management and highlighted the importance of security and website design to users.

Mr. Ron Villagonzalo, co-founder of the Philippine Bloggers Network and Ms. Rosario Juan, CEO of Commune discussed analytics, creating a voice, brand, and style for social media pages and explained how current pop culture trends could be harnessed to create engaging and meaningful posts.

Rounding the roster of speakers for the session was University of the Philippines Los Banos, College of Development Communication Dean, Dr. Ma. Theresa Velasco, who shared that establishment of the vision, mission, and goals can set the working standards and policies for effectively communicating and disseminating health research results.

The Council organized the Engaged: Communicating Health Research in Everyday Language as a parallel session during the 36th PCHRD Anniversary to assist the research utilization committee members in their communication efforts and dissemination of research results in their respective regions.