The Story Service at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health
PEAK Strategic Plan: Public Engagement, Advocacy and Knowledge Mobilization Consultation
Our in-depth consultation will deliver a comprehensive analysis of your research, aims, the audiences you wish to reach and the impact you hope to have in communicating your mission and findings. We will lay out a plan that includes an overarching strategy including specific executions such as press releases, podcast episodes, graphics, news stories with reporters versed in the subject matter, or even long-term partnership with journalists over the entire grant period. Our strategic plan will offer a road map to successful communications, engagement and knowledge mobilization. Longitudinal strategic advice is provided for the duration of the grant.
Be Engaging
Be Competitive
Be Efficient
How we work
Collaborative assessment of communications goals
Focused strategy to achieve those goals
Targeted content and distribution to impact your audience
Our Collaborators
Execution: Partnership with Investigative Journalism Bureau to Execute Elements of the Strategic Plan
Work collaboratively with our science communications specialists, journalists and editors to reach a broader public audience. As part of academic funding applications, researchers will be invited to include salary support for scicomm professionals and/or journalists, which comes with editorial support and intern/learner practicum opportunity. Our team will work with researchers to convey their findings widely, amplify their impact and explore through journalistic storytelling societal implications and policy solutions.
Read about Previous Partnerships
Dr. Aaron Goodarzi and his team spent years gathering data and creating Canada’s largest set of residential radon test results. In early 2021, he shared this data with IJB and Toronto Star reporters and we collaborated to bring it to the public’s attention. Invisible Threat used never-before published national data revealing striking –– and growing –– levels of deadly radon gas inside millions of Canadian homes. Photo via Phil Crozier. 
Dr. Zahra Shakeri is an expert in health information visualization. Dr. Shakeri and the HIVE Lab team created databases integral to the projects Lead in Drinking Water and Patient Files. Photo via Zahra Shakeri. 
Dr. Blair Bigham was a key player into an investigation into nurses in the Niagara Health System who are facing overwhelming patient loads. Blair Bigham is an Assistant Professor and Senior Editor at the IJB, an award-winning journalist, and a physician who trained in emergency and critical care medicine at McMaster and Stanford Universities. Photo via Blair Bigham. 
Dr. Arthur Caplan is a professor and founding head of the Division of Medical Ethics at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine’s Department of Population Health in New York City. Dr. Caplan is featured on Insights and Heliograph. Photo via Arthur Caplan. 
During the Investigative Journalism Bureau’s inaugural project Generation Distress, Neil Seeman served as the founder and CEO of RIWI, which was integral to collecting the opinions of more than 6,000 Canadian and American university and college students for the project. Photo via Neil Seeman. 
Dr. Dan Werb brought a study, which found a 67 per cent reduction in overdose deaths in neighbourhoods within 500 metres of supervised consumption sites after they opened, to the IJB. The IJB brought in additional expert opinions, sought out voices, and co-published a story with the Toronto Star on the effect of safe consumption sites on overdose deaths. Photo via Giovanni Capriotti for the Toronto Star.
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