Advocacy can improve awareness of lung cancer among decision makers, but only if advocates can deliver their messages confidently, consistently, and effectively. To be successful, policy and decision makers must not just hear advocacy messages about lung cancer; they also must accept the information as valid and act on it.
“There has been a consistent challenge of how to help lung cancer advocates share their powerful personal stories,” said Dusty Donaldson, lung cancer survivor and Co-Chair of the Lung Cancer Action Network (LungCAN). “My own career in journalism and public relations told me that media training can make a tremendous difference in helping advocates present their messages effectively to help impact decisions.”
Ms. Donaldson presented “Media Training Equips Advocates to Increase Awareness About Lung Cancer Issues” during the 2023 World Conference on Lung Cancer. The session can be viewed on demand by registered WCLC 2023 attendees until December 31.
LungCAN is a collaborative association of US-based lung cancer advocacy organizations. Their common goal is to unite and amplify the voice of the lung cancer community. The group designed a 2-year Advocate Media Training Project that was intended to broaden public awareness across a wide range of issues important to the lung cancer advocacy community.
Key messages included radon risk reduction, early detection, biomarker testing, precision medicine, stigma, and more.
The COVID pandemic interrupted the planned in-person training program, promoting LungCAN to shift to an online program that consisted of 10, 2-hour online sessions. All the sessions were recorded and are publicly available.
The training agenda included practical pointers, practice sessions, and individual coaching to help participants create and present confident, knowledgeable messages during media interviews and other public appearances.
Simply knowing when to look at the interviewer, a camera, or an audience; how to use appropriate hand gestures and body language to convey confidence and sincerity; ways to keep an interview on message; and different approaches to disarm or rebuff hostile questions can dramatically improve advocacy results, Ms. Donaldson said. Advocates also learned to integrate overarching themes of compassion and hope into their specific messages to improve impact.
The virtual training included 72 advocates from 26 LungCAN member organizations. LungCAN purchased media tracking data through Cison with detailed media tracking and analytical measurement of media outlet audiences. Training sessions took place between March and May of 2021.
“Just two of our advocates reached an audience exceeding 630 million people across 32 states and five countries outside the US,” Ms. Donaldson reported. “Advocates reported a greater sense of empowerment and confidence in sharing their impactful messages with the media and others. Equipping advocates to engage with media on timely lung cancer issues has the potential to significantly increase positive coverage about lung cancer.”
More effective advocacy also has the potential to sway decision makers and improve funding for lung cancer research. A concerted social media effort targeting more than 400 federal legislators boosted lung cancer funding by the US Department of Defense Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program (CDMRP) Lung Cancer Research Program (LCRP) from a 2012 low of $10.2 million to $25 million in 2024. Lung cancer was the only DCMRP cancer program to receive a funding increase.
