Call for Applications: Public Voices Fellowship Program

Through this year-long fellowship, 20 thought leaders in public health, health services research, and health policy receive training and support to elevate their voices and amplify their expertise in today’s most crucial health justice conversations.

Participants will use these skills to shape their fields and foster crucial conversations to drive the HSR and health policy enterprise toward higher impact, equitable research. The Public Voices Fellowship is a national initiative to change who writes history and create a more just world. Accordingly, the majority of the cohort will be historically excluded and underrepresented voices, including women and people of color.

Aims

• Through the Public Voices Fellowship, AcademyHealth and The OpEd Project aim to bring new, diverse voices into the public conversation and highlight the need for more innovative approaches to address systemic and structural barriers in health and health services research. As voices for science innovation, fellows are encouraged to imagine and advocate for more inclusive and representative approaches to formulating research questions, creating incentive structures, engaging partners, training researchers, working with data, and disseminating findings.
• The fellowship curriculum explores authority, equity, innovation, and action in an unfair world. Fellows will explore how credibility works, how ideas spread, when and why minds change, and how ideas play out over time and space.

Program Details

• Approximately 20 fellows per cohort.
• One-year fellowship (9 months dedicated coaching + 3 months follow on support).
• Four discovery-based convenings designed to catalyze knowledge and outcomes.
• Dedicated coaching and editing from top journalists.
• Access to weekly journalist office hours and regular expert talks with media leaders.
• The program includes four virtual workshops and one-on-one coaching by leading journalists and editors. All participants commit to writing at least two opinion pieces (and hopefully many more) during their fellowship.
• Applicants must commit to and save the following dates for the three (3) virtual and one (1) in person convenings:
  • Session 1: a 3-day virtual kickoff convening
    • Wednesday-Friday, November 29-December 1, 2023.
  • Session 2: a 2-day virtual workshop
    • Thursday and Friday, February 15-16, 2024.
  • Session 3: a 2-day virtual workshop
    • Thursday and Friday, April 25-26, 2024.
  • Session 4: One, full day, in person session in Baltimore, MD
    • Friday, June 28, 2024, travel support is provided.

What they are looking for?

• They are looking for new voices in community-based organizations, civil society, nonprofits, academia, and the private sector, including advocates, entrepreneurs, community and business leaders, scientists, educators, and writers, among others.
• They seek leaders working at the intersection of public health, communication, and social justice, with a demonstrated desire and ability to contribute to public dialogue on making health services research more relevant and actionable for all. Areas of focus could include big data, funding practices and avenues, publication processes, racial justice, local, national or global policy, or many others.
• Fellows will be chosen through a competitive selection process. They are committed to building a diverse cohort. They will consider a variety of factors, including but not limited to gender, race/ethnicity, age, geography, area of expertise, work history, and experience.
• Fellows are welcome to also focus on any concrete thought leadership outcomes they wish, across any media platform they like, whether written, broadcast, online, public speaking, or something else. The purpose of committing to concrete outcomes is simply to ensure they are putting ideas into the public sphere, and not merely talking about it.

For more information, visit AcademyHealth.