A rapid evidence review of health advocacy for communicable diseases - Insights into health communication

​This evidence review examines international evidence on public health advocacy initiatives for communicable diseases, in order to identify gaps in the evidence and provide recommendations.

Advocacy has been identified as a key strategy for public health and a powerful tool to promote equity. Even though there were no evidence reviews of public health advocacy initiatives for communicable disease found in the literature, the review identified a range of sources of evaluated health advocacy interventions, models and toolkits in the wider health advocacy arena that could be used to inform the development of effective strategies and resources for communicable disease.

Health advocacy for communicable diseases is clearly still at a nascent stage and the current evidence base is very underdeveloped. However, the shared consensus in the literature about core components of health advocacy initiatives and the existence of templates and toolkits, means that foundations do exist upon which to advance in advocacy for the prevention of communicable diseases.