Authentically Engaged

Some of the most important public health conversations I have ever been part of did not happen in a meeting. They happened because I showed up as a person, not just a professional. I grew up around people who did not trust systems easily. Not because they were difficult. Because they were observant. They watched what people did. They paid attention to consistency. They knew the difference between someone showing up because it was their job and someone showing up because they cared.

You could not force trust in those spaces. You could not talk your way into it. You had to exist there long enough, honestly enough, that people decided for themselves that you belonged.

For most people, public health feels distant. It feels like something that exists somewhere else. In offices. In policies. In decisions made by people they do not know.

Not because the work is unimportant. Not because the science is weak. Not because the outcomes are unclear. But because somewhere along the way, public health forgot that its job was to be connected, not just correct.

We built systems designed to distribute information. We built programs designed to reach populations. We built strategies designed to influence behavior. Those are amazing things that we should be proud of. It is important work. But public health interventions don’t work if people don’t feel seen inside of them.

Public health was never supposed to sit behind a counter or inside a report or buried in a website. It was supposed to exist in the spaces where people already are. In coffee shops. In living rooms. At school events. In text messages between friends. In conversations that have nothing to do with public health at all, until suddenly, they do. That is the work, and it is slower than people want it to be.

You cannot authentically engage people on a timeline that fits inside a grant cycle. You cannot build trust by hosting one meeting and calling it outreach, especially in systems where the employees and positions change so much that relationships have to be continuously rebuilt. We have to make it relate.

Authentic engagement is not efficient. It requires presence without agenda. It requires listening without immediately preparing your response. It requires showing up before you need something and continuing to show up long after.

Most importantly, it is built in the small moments. It is built when someone realizes you are not there to extract something from them. You are there because they matter. Once that happens, everything changes.

People support people more than programs. It is personal. They will support the person who sat with them when no one else did over something they read on a website. They support the person who explained something without making them feel small. They will remember that conversation next time they engage with public health.

Every person who authentically understands public health becomes an extension of it, and not because they were told to. Because it matters to them on a personal level. Because they see themselves inside of it. When someone understands how public health impacts their child, their farm, their church, their business, their parents, their future, it stops being abstract. It stops being government. It stops being something external.

And when something becomes personal, people protect it. They advocate for it. They defend it. They explain it to others. They carry it into spaces public health will never physically reach. Imagine people investing themselves into public health because they are connecting the dots — having conversations at high school football games, at gas station coffee meetups, or in the breakroom at their office. That is how they become champions. Not appointed champions. Not assigned champions. Real ones. And those people are the most powerful force public health has.

Programs come and go. Leadership changes. Funding shifts. Priorities evolve. But relationships endure.

When public health invests in authentic connection, it builds something that exists outside of any single initiative. It creates a network of trust that continues to function regardless of structure. This kind of work cannot be rushed. It cannot be automated. It cannot be replaced by messaging campaigns or polished materials. It is built conversation by conversation. Interaction by interaction. Year by year. It requires patience. It requires commitment. And it requires accepting that this work is uncomfortable. Because authentic engagement asks you to step outside of the safety of your role. It asks you to exist without the protection of your title, your authority or your expertise. It asks you to listen without controlling the outcome. It asks you to hear criticism without defending yourself. It asks you to sit in spaces where public health may not be wanted and work to build trust anyway.

Authentic engagement is tedious. It is slow. It often happens in moments that do not count toward productivity metrics. It happens outside of clocking in and clocking out. It happens in conversations that were never scheduled. It happens when it would be easier to go home, when there is no immediate result, no visible progress, no recognition.

It works because people know when they are being engaged out of obligation and when they are being engaged out of belief. This work asks more of public health professionals than technical skill. It asks for humility. It asks for presence. It asks for endurance. Because what we are building is not a program.

In my own work, I have tried to create spaces where these kinds of conversations can happen more often. Our local podcast, Let’s Talk About It, was built around the idea that public health conversations should not be confined to formal settings. It gives people a place to hear stories and perspectives that connect public health to everyday life in ways traditional communication rarely does.

I have seen what happens when people feel like public health belongs to them. I have seen the shift when someone moves from skepticism to investment. I have watched people go from observers to advocates. I have watched relationships open doors that programs never could. Not because we convinced them. Because we connected with them. Because we treated them like partners instead of audiences. Because public health is not something we deliver to people. It is something we build with them.

Public health does not change when we become louder. It changes when we become closer to the people we serve, to the communities we exist in, and to the conversations that matter to them, even when those conversations do not start with us.

For local public health leaders, the call to action is simple. Protect space for relationships. Support staff who engage with communities as people, not just professionals. Recognize that trust-building is real work. Step outside of your comfort zone and out of your office. You are going to get questions that are uncomfortable and hard. But getting those questions and having those conversations is the work. Recently I had the opportunity to sit in on a luncheon and talk about the health department. The questions started coming almost immediately. Some were tough. Some were uncomfortable. A few of them caught me off guard. I left that meeting feeling a little agitated. I had spoken to that group before, and the questions they asked this time were not easy ones. But then it hit me. They felt comfortable enough to ask and that alone matters. Those questions meant the door was open. It meant people felt like they could challenge, push back and still stay in the conversation. We walked out of that lunch with more understanding and more room to keep the conversations going.

That is what I have come to realize is the work. Not avoiding the hard questions. Being willing to stay in the room long enough to answer them. That is how public health becomes truly trusted. That is how public health becomes something people carry forward, long after we leave the room. Public health does not change by perfecting our messaging. It changes when people decide it belongs to them.

About the Author

Candice Sauers is Deputy Director at the Saline County Health Department.