Turning health evidence into a plan for change

Published: 21 September 2026

Professor Amie Steel says evidence alone rarely changes health policy or practice. Real change depends on a disciplined advocacy process - and it's a process anyone can learn.

Turning an issue into an ask

For health professionals, researchers and community organisations, understanding a problem clearly is part of the job. Having access to the specific skills needed to shift policy or practice? That can be a different matter entirely.

Professor Amie Steel is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow, President of the Queensland Branch of the Public Health Association of Australia and the author of more than 250 peer-reviewed publications, with her work informing clinical practice and policy through contributions to projects for national and international agencies including Health and Wellbeing Queensland, the Food and Agriculture Organisation, and the World Health Organisation.

Through extensive experience as an advocate, Professor Steel knows building a disciplined case for change starts long before any decision-maker is approached.

"The advocacy model is really about figuring out what your ask is, and framing it so the right person understands it," said Professor Steel.

"From there, it is about bringing the right stakeholders in, mapping out who might push back, and building an action plan to move forward."

Health Advocacy in Action

A new intensive short course at Southern Cross University puts this process into practice. The course is facilitated by leading health advocacy expert Dr Melissa Stoneham and supported by Professor Steel and the Faculty of Health. Participants define an advocacy ask, map stakeholders and opposition, build coalitions and pitch a completed plan. By the end, groups have tested their plan against likely resistance and have a clear next step. The course is open to health, policy and community-sector professionals; entry is by interest rather than formal qualification.

Enrol in Health Advocacy in Action

Building skills for change

Dr Melissa Stoneham, co-founder and past Director of the Public Health Advocacy Institute, has spent three decades in the health sector, ten of those specifically building advocacy capability across Australia.

Professor Steel and Dr Stoneham are currently applying the advocacy model at scale, in a Public Health Association of Australia campaign for a healthier Brisbane 2032 Olympics.

"Through the Public Health Association of Australia’s Queensland Branch, we are currently going through the process of enacting an advocacy plan for a healthy Olympics for Brisbane and southeast Queensland," said Professor Steel.

The campaign focuses on free drinking water, healthy food, shade and sustainable transport at the Games. This work, according to Professor Steel, begins years before the opening ceremony, but the same model can be employed across any advocacy project.

"These are skills that matter across the whole health sector," said Professor Steel.

"Health services, researchers, grassroots community groups - so many people want to turn an issue they care about into a plan for change."