Health economist and editor of The Incidental Economist Austin Frakt takes five minutes to talk to LSE Impact blog editor Danielle Moran on how his research blog has increased his exposure and has grown to become a credible source in academic, media and policy circles

Blog Admin, Impact of Social Sciences,

Frakt, Austin

English

LSE Research Online

blo gs.lse.ac.uk http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impacto fsocialsciences/2011/11/11/five-minutes-with-austin-frakt/by Blog Admin November 11, 2011Five minutes with The Incidental Economist Austin Frakt:“Only 0.04% of published papers in health are reported on bythe media, so blogs and other social media can help.”Health economist and editor of The Incidental Economist Austin Frakt takes five minutes totalk to LSE Impact blog editor Danielle Moran on how his research blog has increased hisexposure and has grown to become a credible source in academic, media and policy circles.Why did you originally decide to blog, and how has your experience with TheIncidental Economist changed or evolved your ideas on knowledge dissemination?Originally, I was invited to blog on The Finance Buf f , a personal f inance site. I hadinteracted online with the creator of  that blog and f ound we had a mutual interestin a certain style of  investing and in explaining it to others.Within a f ew months I realized that I didn’t have enough to say about personalf inance to sustain my interest or writ ing, but I still loved to write and educate. Itwas natural to turn to health economics and health policy, since I think aboutthose every day, sometimes all day, sometimes half  the night.I’ve always been empirically minded. I’m not big on unverif ied or unverif iabletheories and speculation. I’m not that interested in making arguments that servea polit ical interest. I’m really a scientist and an engineer. That was my academictraining – physics and engineering – all the way through graduate school, though I work as a healtheconomist.Consistent with all this, I read a lot of  empirically-oriented academic papers and other material produced bysubject-matter experts and relevant to health policy. It has a lot more to say about the likely outcomes ofvarious policy interventions than most people realize.But it ’s not readily accessible to those it can best serve, policymakers. One way to reach policymakers is bytranslating the content of  technical work f or journalists. If  journalists can understand and report on it, thereis a prayer it might inf luence policy. As a community, health services researchers still have a long way to goin this regard. Only 0.04% (not a typo!) of  published papers in health are reported on by the media. Blogsand other social media can help.You init ially ran TIE as a single-author blog. Now that the blog has transit ioned to a multi-authorplatform, how do you f ind the process different, and what benefits, or problems, do you f ind amulti-author blog brings?Init ially, it was like an out-of -body experience to see content published f rom a platf orm that was onceentirely my own. That’s slightly more than a metaphor (ok, simile) because I do use the blog as a notebookf or my thoughts. It really is an extension of  the memory f unctions of  my brain. Now it has multiplepersonalit ies. I’m still looking f or the ICD code f or that (multiple blog disorder?).The benef its are that the platf orm is being leveraged to provide more great content than I could produce onmy own. It ’s more ef f icient and productive to have good people f ill up TIE than f or each to try to drawattention to their own blog. My co-bloggers are excellent, and the blog is as much theirs as mine. I like tosay that TIE has undergone several mergers, not acquisit ions. I learn a lot f rom the others who blog at TIETo  re ach p o licy make rs, re se arche rs ne e d  to  re p ackag ep o licy-re le vant re se arch find ing s in a way that is  fast,acce ssib le , kno wle d g e ab le , re le vant, cre d ib le , andp e rso nal. Click the  chart to  se e  mo re– Aaron Carroll, Don Taylor, Kevin Outterson, Harold Pollack, and Steve Pizer – and they are greatresources.The disadvantage is that the blog does not have a single, unif ied voice. I’m not talking about disagreementsof  perspectives among the bloggers. I’m just talking about the ability of  readers to connect. Blogging is f armore personal than academic or print journalistic writ ing. I think it is most successf ul when readers f eel theyknow the writer as an individual, a bit like a columnist, perhaps. I think that’s harder when there are multiplevoices. Other blogs I read have gone to a multi-blogger f ormat (e.g. Ezra Klein’s). So, I can tell you f rompersonal experience as a reader, it ’s a dif f erent experience than the single-blogger style.You’ve previously written on the ‘t iming mismatch’ that stands between tradit ional journalpublishing and press releases and policy-making and 24-hour news. Is this something thatblogging research and promoting academic work through social media are uniquely posit ioned tocounter?I don’t know about uniquely posit ioned. It ’s not as if  there were not other channels of  t imely disseminationbef ore the internet. But blogging def initely helps. It takes very litt le t ime to put a post together, and it canreach the right audience at light speed. It ’s more ef f icient than a phone call since it is one to many. Isuppose email is similar but the beauty of  a blog is that readers self  select. They’re already receptive toyour input. Sending an email to someone (or to many people) who doesn’t (or don’t) expect or want it is notas likely to penetrate.For all these reasons, a blog is a usef ul way f orsubject-matter experts to disseminate worthy andrelevant research at the time it is relevant to the policydebate, which is not the timing achieved by pressreleases. Press releases are timed somewhatrandomly and, theref ore, of ten are not relevant to theissue of  the moment. I’ve illustrated (see chart) anddiscussed this on TIE so I ref er interested readers tothat.From your experience with TIE, how have youfound that blogging has increased yourexposure? And have your blogs produced anyunexpected results?Blogging has def initely increased my exposure, bothwithin academia and the broader policy and media worlds. It ’s been net posit ive, so f ar, leading to greateraccess to colleagues at other institutions (who didn’t know me at all bef ore) and to the policy process.The whole thing has been unexpected. None of  this was planned or even my ambition when I beganblogging. It just happened. I suppose TIE provides something of  value, something unique and relevant. It isaccepted as credible and accessible, a byproduct of  who we are and how we think.I’ll be honest, though. Once I saw the potential f or TIE to be of  greater value and use to journalists andpolicy experts, I’ve directed my blogging in service to that. I also reach out to interested parties by email andon Twitter. So there is some behind-the-scenes promotion. Still, if  it  wasn’t valuable, none of  that wouldwork. The quality of  the product comes f irst, and it relies on the good work by my colleagues in research.They (and I) do the hard work, crunch the data, write the papers. Then the translation and disseminationcan begin.What would you say to academics who are skeptical about blogging their research or to those whoare interested but worry about t ime or work pressures?I think one can use blogs and Twitter f orClick to  vis it The  Inc id e ntal Eco no mistI think one can use blogs and Twitter f orproductive dissemination without a big t imecommitment. Naturally, the more one does it,the more ef f icient one becomes. Also, oneref ines one’s approach to achieve betterresults with the same ef f ort. Still, if  one wroteone good, policy relevant, research basedpost per week, that would be valuable. Thatcould take as litt le as an hour or two. One canalso tweet out relevant papers and f acts oremail them to potentially interested individuals(journalists, etc.). As I said, that may not be asef f icient or usef ul, but it is still worth trying toreach out. Also, don’t just promote your ownwork. Be an ambassador f or the researchcommunity to which you belong. That’s bothmore credible and more broadly usef ul.But bef ore all that, academics could start reading blogs and f ollowing Twitter f eeds. Trust me, the besthealth-related policy news is in the blogosphere. It ’s been that way f or years.You can follow Austin on twitter @afrakt.Related posts:1. Continual publishing across journals, blogs and social media maximises impact by increasing the sizeof  the ‘academic f ootprint’.2. Becoming a Networked Researcher – using social media f or research and researcher development3. The use of  social media in higher education can be a posit ive step towards bridging the digital divide,but it is not a f ail-saf e measure4. Academic blogging and collaboration make demonstrating pathways to impact an easier matter5. Cite or Site? The current view of  what constitutes ‘academic publishing’ is too limited. Our publishedwork must become truly public.

Five minutes with The Incidental Economist Austin Frakt: “Only 0.04% of published papers in health are reported on by the media, so blogs and other social media can help”

Five minutes with The Incidental Economist Austin Frakt: “Only 0.04% of published papers in health are reported on by the media, so blogs and other social media can help”

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