Letter from the CEO - 11/20/2025

It’s been over a year since my last letter. Like many public health professionals and organizations, I’ve been pivoting to adapt to the whirlwind of changes at the federal level. Over the past year, I’ve had to triple down on business development to strengthen Let’s Talk Public Health’s financial footing as public health funding continues to decline. That meant taking on more contract work – and honestly, that’s why you haven’t heard from us/me in a while. Anything that was not client work had to wait.

Our financial future remains uncertain, and I expect the same is true for many other public health professionals, organizations, and businesses. We’ll do what we can to keep producing free resources to help you creatively and effectively engage with communities, partners, and policymakers, and to continue offering opportunities for professional growth, development, and collaboration.

How We’re Thinking About Public Health and Health Communication Going Forward

​I’ve always had a holistic view of health, which to me includes the Eight Dimensions of Wellness (physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual, social, financial, occupational, and environmental) and the One Health approach (the understanding that the health of people, animals, and the planet is interconnected). I’ve been putting together a concept map of what holistic and interconnected public health looks like to me–and it’s finally ready. This map will guide all Let’s Talk Public Health operations and work moving forward.

Click below to download a PDF version of the Let's Talk Public Health Holistic Interconnected Public Health Concept Map.

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The foundation of holistic interconnected public health is the Social Ecological Model — another favorite theoretical model of mine — because it demonstrates how our health is shaped by multiple layers of influence, from our personal choices to the larger systems and global forces around us.

Each layer affects the decisions we make about our health:

• Individual: What we know, what we believe, how we feel, and the skills we have all influence the choices we make about our health.
• Interpersonal: The people around us — our partners, family, friends, coworkers, neighbors, and even online influencers — can support or change the choices we make.
• Organizational: The places we spend a lot of time, such as schools, workplaces, religious spaces, and healthcare facilities, have policies and environments that shape our options and behaviors.
• Community: Our neighborhoods and local communities have shared norms, cultures, resources, and physical conditions that shape our chances for health, safety, stability, and connection — and our access to services, support, and healthy environments.
• Public Policies: The laws and rules created by governments — along with global relationships that shape trade, labor, migration, security, the environment, and public health — determine which resources, protections, rights, and opportunities we do or don’t have.

Threaded throughout these layers are various determinants of health, including:

• Social determinants: Conditions that determine whether we can live healthy, fulfilling lives, such as access to housing, education, transportation, food, and social support.
• Commercial determinants: Activities by businesses, corporations, and other private sector/commercial entities that determine whether we can live healthy, fulfilling lives, including creating and marketing unhealthy products or paying employees low wages.
• Political determinants: Political decisions, policies, and systems by voters, policymakers, and governments that determine whether we can live healthy, fulfilling lives, such as electing government officials who enact significant staff and budget cuts to agencies protecting public health.​​

Public Health Needs to Communicate the Bigger Picture

If we’re going to talk about public health issues, we have to expand our scope beyond the physical and emotional well-being of humans and social determinants of health to also address the other dimensions of wellness and the commercial and political determinants of health. We need to help people understand the forces shaping their health and what they can do, individually and collectively, to influence change. We also need to help them see how their day-to-day choices and behaviors affect the health of not only other people around the world, but also animals and the planet. That whole picture is essential if we want to build systems that truly protect and promote health.​

Our current economic system prioritizes profits over people, animals, and the planet, pushing industries toward continual growth at any cost. Industrial production and shipping consume vast natural resources, produce large amounts of waste and byproducts, and release pollutants into our air, water, and soil. Additionally, global industrial supply chains often rely on low wages and unsafe working conditions.

These same industries don’t just influence our environment and labor systems — they also shape our information, choices, and political landscape. Large corporations and industry groups use targeted marketing, political lobbying, and strategic philanthropy to influence policy (laws), academic research, and public discourse — shaping what we buy, how we live, and even what we believe.

Federal, state, and local government decisions about funding, regulation, and rights determine what businesses, corporations, and other commercial interests can do —and by extension, whether public health can thrive.

• When public health funding is cut, we lose the capacity to educate, prepare, prevent, and respond — leaving communities vulnerable.
• When antitrust enforcement is weakened, monopolies grow unchecked, allowing corporations to dominate markets, set prices, limit choice, extract wealth, and shape the flow of information.
• When policies prioritize deregulation and profit, industries face fewer limits on environmental pollution, harmful marketing, exploitative labor practices, and unsafe products — shifting the risks and costs onto the people in communities where they source their materials and labor.
• When consumer protections and safety regulations are rolled back, harmful products reach the market faster, injuries and illnesses increase, and accountability becomes harder to enforce.
• When labor protections are weakened or wages stagnate, workers face unsafe conditions, chronic stress, and economic instability, all of which worsen health outcomes.
• When housing policies favor investors over residents, displacement, homelessness, and overcrowding rise — eroding the basic stability required for physical and mental health.
• When healthcare regulations favor consolidation, local access shrinks, prices rise, and communities lose control over their health systems.
• When digital and media policies prioritize corporate interests over public interest, algorithms, misinformation, and censorship shape what health information people can or cannot access.
• When environmental protections are rolled back, pollution increases, climate threats worsen, and low-income communities bear the brunt of the harm.
• When global health partnerships are weakened or politicized, countries become less prepared for pandemics, climate impacts, supply chain shocks, and humanitarian crises.
• When education and social service programs are underfunded, the social determinants of health get overlooked — affecting everything from nutrition and safety to literacy and lifelong wellbeing.

What We’re Doing — and Why

So what is Let’s Talk Public Health doing about this? We’re looking ahead to 2026 and focusing on the tools, resources, and spaces we can build to help public health students, professionals, and organizations navigate what’s coming next, particularly as it relates to how they inform and engage the communities they serve and the partners they collaborate with.

• 🌐 Updated Public Health FAQs — We’re tracking the federal-level changes shaping the field and breaking them down so you can stay informed without overwhelm.
• 🧩 Specialty Public Health Products — We’re creating joyful, enriching products you can use during much-needed breaks from the doom and gloom — because rest and play are part of health, too. Check out our first public health puzzle book.
• 📧 Newsletters — We’re revamping our newsletters to keep you informed, inspired, and connected — with direct-to-you, algorithm-free content. Make sure you’re signed up.
• 📅 Free & Paid Events — We’re hosting more events for community building, skill development, and algorithm-free connection and conversation. Check out our first webinar on pivoting your public health communication. 
• 👩🏽‍🎓 Experiential Learning Program (ELP) — We’re hosting two ELP cohorts per year, supporting students and early-career professionals with hands-on experience and mentorship. Apply for the Spring 2026 cohort by November 30, 2025.
• 📱 2026 Digital Media Trends Report — We’ll be providing data-informed insights and practical suggestions for navigating the changing media/technology landscape. See how we did this after COVID-19.
• 🎓 Courses & Coaching — We’ll be covering the essentials of health communication and professional branding to support the many public health workers navigating freelancing, consulting, or self-employment. (Coming in 2026 to the Let’s Talk Public Health Academy).

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We’re also being more intentional with our attention, time, and dollars, giving them only to businesses and organizations that prioritize the health of people, animals, and the planet over profits. Over the past year, I’ve been making these adjustments in my personal life (cancelling subscriptions and purchases from companies that don't pass the vibe check, switching to conflict-free, environmentally-friendly brands, shopping way less, and shopping small, local, and secondhand). If you're interested in more of my individual journey — of trying to be a better citizen of the world — stay tuned. I plan on sharing more of that content in the new year.​

How You Can Help Us Help You

If you love using our free resources, consider:

• Ordering a pin from our Store,
• Buying a digital download from our Academy, or
• Buying us a cup of coffee.

Thank you for reading, sharing, and supporting this work. We’re in this together!
​​
Sincerely,
Monique Thornton, MPH
Founder & CEO, Let’s Talk Public Health

P.S. – Remember to give grace to yourself, us, and to others in public health who are doing work under immense pressure. Funding is tight, needs are growing, and one organization or person can’t do everything.