Former White House COVID advisor shares advice on public health communication

Andy Slavitt has seen firsthand how powerful synergies between the U.S. government and private industries can supercharge solutions in public health.

As a health care entrepreneur and leader in the White House’s development of some of the most important health care initiatives of the 21st century, Slavitt helped implement the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and advised President Joe Biden’s administration on its COVID-19 response.

Slavitt bets big on American innovation to improve public health for all. And on March 28, in a “fireside chat” with Yale School of Public Health Dean Megan L. Ranney, MD, he told an audience of YSPH students, faculty, and affiliates why.

“What are the two greatest things that we are actually good at in this country? One is the power of government. We’re pretty good when we regulate well, and we are pretty bad when we don’t,” Slavitt said. “And the second is innovation. We know how to innovate.”

Slavitt was invited to YSPH as a featured guest in YSPH’s “Leaders in Public Health” speaker series, a new recurring event created by Ranney to showcase public health’s most innovative, insightful, and important voices.

Ranney told the audience that Slavitt “is one of the world’s most influential public health leaders in both the public sector and the private sector.”

A complete video recording of Dean Ranney's chat with Andy Slavitt can be found on the Leaders in Public Health Speaker Series website.

Slavitt’s nonpartisan, plain-speaking approach to building consensus on important public health issues has repeatedly earned him praise and recognition.

After serving as acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services under President Barack Obama from 2015 to 2017, Slavitt launched a national “Town Hall Challenge,” in which he invited Congressional Republicans to meet with their constituents to explain their position on the ACA (at the time threatened with repeal) and discuss health care policy.

More than 35,000 people participated in the events, which The Nation magazine said helped galvanize public opinion in support of the law. Slavitt later told The New York Times Magazine, “If you give me 15 minutes, I can create a common bond around a story of the health care system with almost any American.”

When the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in the early 2020s, Slavitt launched #Stayhome, an online advocacy campaign designed to provide resources to American families and workers to limit transmission of the virus. Slavitt, with former Federal Food and Drug Administrator Scott Gottlieb and others, also pushed Congress and the Trump administration for billions of dollars in federal funding to conduct better contact tracing nationally as the outbreak spread.

Once again, Slavitt was praised for his ability to reach across party lines for the public good. In an interview with the Chicago Tribune at the time, Slavitt explained his position, “If any of us has an opportunity to help—Republican or Democrat, and I believe this virus spreads between parties—maybe it’s a chance to put partisanship behind us...I’m sure there are people who sit where I sit politically who are upset. I make no apology. We do what we can if it saves lives.”

Recognizing Slavitt’s success in public engagement and service, the Biden administration appointed him as a temporary senior advisor on the COVID-19 pandemic, where he played a key role in advising the public on the rollout of COVID vaccines and the importance of vaccination. While many public health messages from government officials during the height of the pandemic missed their mark, Slavitt was praised for his honesty and transparency.

Ranney asked Slavitt to share some of the secrets of his success as an experienced public health communicator. She told the audience that Slavitt’s focus on effective messaging is particularly instructive for YSPH students.

“One of the things that we’re thinking about a lot as a school is, ‘How do we communicate better?’” Ranney told Slavitt. “How do we grow trust in communities in ways that are both comprehensible and actionable on the part of the communities that we care about, come from, and work with?”

Slavitt used his time with the Biden administration as an example. As he prepared for media interviews about the rollout of new COVID vaccines, Slavitt told the audience, he would pretend that he was explaining the vaccines to someone who was not an expert in health care. In his head, he thought of his sister.

“If she called and asked me a question, I’d want to give her a truthful answer, a complete answer, but I would also trust her to handle the nuance of the answer,” he said. “I’d give her the best advice I possibly could, in the straightest language I possibly could.”

He shared another piece of wisdom, from his wife — competence is sexy.

Slavitt said he used these tips when he told news outlets that there was a shortage of COVID-19 vaccines which impeded the nationwide rollout. Afterward, he said, “tons of people” thanked him for “telling us the truth.”

“You ground yourself in a few principles, and then you just stick to those principles, and you don’t get thrown off,” Slavitt said about his communication strategy. “I don’t have to worry about anything but being helpful.”

Slavitt, who currently serves as a member of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) working group on public health, also offered some practical advice for YSPH students, faculty, and staff.

“Get out of your bubble. Talk to people, listen to people,” Slavitt said. “At some point, you can only be a product of what you see and hear and observe every day. Just talking to each other and seeing each other, you will quickly become more confident in what you believe and what others believe, but will you be gaining insights?”

Separate from his success in government, Slavitt has engaged in entrepreneurial work that has improved health across the country. He is founder and board chair emeritus of United States of Care, a national non-profit health advocacy organization, as well as a founding partner of Town Hall Ventures, a venture capital health care firm that invests in underrepresented communities.

Slavitt said that he and Town Hall Ventures have started or invested in 35 companies that are focused on helping underserved communities and solving the medical conditions that disproportionately affect them, from chronic mental health issues to health care access in rural areas. Several are billion-dollar companies. And all of them, Slavitt said, care for everyone who needs help — regardless of insurance status.

Over the years, Slavitt has earned a reputation as a leading voice in public health with, at one point, more than 600,000 followers on X (formerly Twitter), and thousands more on Threads, another popular social media platform. He routinely chronicles what goes on inside government as an opinion columnist for USA Today and hosts an award-winning podcast called “In the Bubble with Andy Slavitt.” He is also the author of the best-seller “Preventable: The Inside Story of How Leadership Failures, Politics, and Selfishness Doomed the U.S. Coronavirus Response,” that was released in 2021.