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Across the global health landscape, advocacy remains a driving force for systemic transformation. When guided by community leadership and grounded in health equity, it can shape how policies are made, how care is delivered, and whose voices define the future of health.

At its core, advocacy operates as a theory of change: it seeks to influence decision-makers, shift public narratives, and mobilize resources to address systemic barriers. It connects community-identified needs to institutional levers of power, whether through policy reform, funding reallocation, or programmatic innovation. By raising awareness, building coalitions, and applying pressure at key decision points, advocacy acts as a catalyst that aligns political will, financial investment, and health system design toward more equitable outcomes.

Advocacy has driven system-wide change across a range of health issues. In oncology, for example, survivor-led campaigns have helped integrate patient navigation and psychosocial support into cancer care. In rare diseases, coalitions of patient advocates have pushed for regulatory frameworks like the Orphan Drug Act, expanding treatment development for historically overlooked conditions. Mental health advocates have worked to reframe mental well-being as integral to universal health coverage, pushing for decriminalization and expanded access to care.

One of the most compelling examples of this is the HIV movement. Since the onset of the epidemic in 1981, people living with HIV and allied organizations have led one of the most enduring and impactful advocacy movements in global health. Over four decades, sustained community engagement has driven significant progress in financing, treatment access, health system integration, and policy reform. These efforts have shaped global donor agendas, influenced national HIV strategies, and improved service delivery across diverse settings.

Whether in HIV, oncology, mental health, or rare diseases, a consistent truth emerges: advocacy achieves greater and more lasting impact when it is intentional, well-resourced, and aligned to a broader theory of change. Yet, this level of infrastructure and influence remains uneven across disease areas. For example, in mental health, chronic underinvestment in advocacy has hindered integration into primary care and delayed policy reform. Similarly, in rare diseases, fragmented voices and limited coordination have constrained visibility in national access plans.

To accelerate progress in these and other areas, health actors must invest in advocacy not just as a communications tool, but as a core strategy—one that is community-informed, impact-driven, and systemically integrated.

Why Strategy Matters

Advocacy achieves greater and more sustainable impact when it is intentional, data-informed, and aligned to a broader theory of change. In contrast, fragmented or ad hoc efforts often result in duplication, missed opportunities, and diluted returns on investment.

A strategy-driven approach ensures alignment between stakeholders and strengthens the overall architecture of engagement. It enables advocacy to be sustained, scalable, and outcome-oriented.

At the core of effective advocacy strategy are these five guiding principles

  1. Partnering Early with Patient Advocates: Proactive engagement with PAGs ensures that interventions are informed by lived experience and grounded in community priorities.
  2. Defining and Measuring Impact: Advocacy activities should be evaluated using clear metrics that track policy progress, access improvements, and equity gains.
  3. Committing for the Long Term: Sustained effort is needed to link early actions to lasting systemic change and to ensure momentum continues beyond initial attention or funding.
  4. Engaging the Ecosystem: Advocacy is most effective when designed and implemented in collaboration with a broad coalition of stakeholders.
  5. Leading with Transparency: Clear communication of objectives, funding flows, and progress builds trust and enables adaptive course correction. Transparency also helps mitigate misalignment across sectors.
A circular diagram with five colored sections labeled: Illuminate, Collaborate, Measure, Sustain, and Mobilize—each with a unique icon. Arrows show the continuous cycle of purpose-driven advocacy in action.

What Strategy Enables

A strategic approach does more than provide direction—it drives value. It helps stakeholders optimize limited resources, identify the right partners, and coordinate effectively to amplify impact.

  • Better investment decisions: With limited time and funding, strategic planning enables organizations to focus on the opportunities with the highest potential return, whether that means policy change, program reach, or system-level influence.
  • Stronger partnerships: Strategy ensures that collaborations are built on more than goodwill. They are grounded in shared goals and complementary strengths. By selecting advocacy partners based on mission alignment, infrastructure, and reach, companies can engage more intentionally and reduce the friction that often arises from mismatched expectations. Advocacy groups, in turn, feel valued as true thought partners rather than token stakeholders.
  • Measurable progress: When advocacy efforts are grounded in clearly defined objectives and indicators of success, it becomes easier to track what is working and adapt what is not.
  • Cohesive execution: Without strategy, advocacy efforts often become fragmented. Grants, awareness campaigns, and policy work can end up operating in parallel instead of in concert. A strategy-driven model integrates these efforts under a shared vision. Each tactic plays a distinct role in achieving broader change. Whether it involves aligning messaging, coordinating outreach, or sequencing activities for policy impact, strategy ensures that everything works together and nothing works against itself.

Where We Go from Here

To meet today’s health challenges, advocacy must be more than passionate—it must be purposeful.

For the private sector, this means going beyond sponsorship and one-off campaigns to embed advocacy within core business strategies. In particular, pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical technology companies are uniquely positioned to help scale advocacy efforts because of their scientific expertise, global reach, and convening power.
 

Pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical technology companies can:

  • Align corporate and community priorities
    Effective advocacy balances business objectives with patient and community needs. Companies can create shared value by identifying areas where advancing health equity also supports strategic goals, such as improving access to innovative therapies or strengthening health systems.
  • Invest in sustainable infrastructure
    One-off grants and sponsorships can spark momentum, but lasting impact comes from predictable, multi-year investments. By providing stable funding, companies enable advocacy organizations to plan ahead, strengthen internal capacity, and remain engaged over the long term. This stability helps ensure community voices remain consistently represented in policy and system design conversations.
  • Integrate patient voice across the business
    Patient perspectives are a powerful form of advocacy. Embedding them across R&D, clinical development, regulatory engagement, market access, and policy ensures that business decisions reflect lived experience. This not only enhances credibility with external stakeholders but also helps design more relevant, equitable solutions.
  • Build coalitions across sectors
    The private sector brings unique convening power that can bridge silos across government, multilateral agencies, civil society, and academia. By facilitating coalitions, companies can help unify fragmented advocacy voices and drive collective action toward common policy goals. These coalitions amplify impact and lend legitimacy to advocacy positions, making it more likely that decision-makers will act.
  • Measure and communicate impact
    Advocacy’s value often goes unrecognized without clear metrics. Companies can help change this by embedding measurement into advocacy strategies from the start. Beyond counting activities or events, impact should be demonstrated through outcomes such as policy adoption, funding shifts, or expanded access to services. Communicating these results reinforces accountability, strengthens partnerships, and makes the case for continued investment.

By approaching advocacy as a strategic lever, the private sector can strengthen health systems, expand access, and create long-term value for both communities and companies.

Hamda Khan
Managing Consultant

Hamda is an experienced global health consultant and biomedical research scientist, offering strategic guidance to leading pharmaceutical companies on partnerships and health-focused strategies. Before joining Rabin Martin, she served as a research scientist at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Vaccine Research and Review. As a Managing Consultant at Rabin Martin, Hamda applies her deep scientific expertise to address critical public health issues, with a focus on immunization and infectious disease.

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