WASHINGTON — The 2020 work of the American Psychological Association has received two prestigious honors: a World Changing Ideas Award from Fast Company magazine for its yearlong response to the COVID-19 pandemic and a Gold Circle Merit Award from the American Society of Association Executives for APA’s flagship podcast, “Speaking of Psychology.”
“We are extremely proud to see APA’s work recognized by these respected organizations,” said APA CEO Arthur C. Evans Jr., PhD. “Staff across the association stepped up to meet the challenges of 2020. We brought the full force of our discipline and our association—staff, elected leaders and rank-and-file members—to provide evidence-based information to the fight against COVID-19. At the same time, we continued our mission to ‘give psychology away’ in the interest of improving people’s lives.”
Fast Company’s fifth annual World Changing Ideas Awards honor the businesses, policies, projects and concepts that are actively engaged and deeply committed to pursuing innovation when it comes to solving health and climate crises, social injustice or economic inequality. APA won an honorable mention in the new Pandemic Response category.
The award recognized how APA brought psychology to broader audiences through rapidly formed, strategic partnerships with organizations representing a cross-section of America, including health care providers, public officials, parents, teachers, journalists, rural and farming populations as well as insurers and mental health associations.
“We worked with groups including Farm Aid, the National PTA, the National Governors Association, the international Public Relations Communications Association, the National Association of Manufacturers and the National Football League—and within six months had guided their audiences toward better coping, more successful communication with constituents, and stronger support for communities through sharing the science of human behavior,” said APA Chief Communications Officer Alicia Aebersold.
Efforts included:
- Creating an online compendium of more than 200 COVID-19 mental health resources for psychologists, health-care workers and the public, addressing topics such as: stress, anxiety, grief, physical distancing, isolation and telepsychology.
- Expanding APA’s Stress in America program to gather baseline and ongoing measurements of the public’s stress related to the pandemic. Survey results appeared in at least 3,800 news stories reaching an estimated audience of up to 9.5 billion people.
- Working with Amazon to ensure psychologists were considered essential front-line workers in order to access personal protective equipment.
- Winning legal permission for practicing psychologists to offer telepsychotherapy and persuading Medicaid to cover telehealth, including audio-only. This expanded access for people living in rural and low-income areas to ensure greater access to mental health care during the crisis.
APA’s flagship podcast, “Speaking of Psychology,” earned a Gold Circle Merit Award in the Digital Media category. The award recognized the quality of the podcast, along with its remarkable growth since its inception in 2013. The podcast ended 2020 with more than 2 million downloads, almost twice the total at the beginning of the year.
“These results are a testament to the extraordinary hard work of APA staff at every level of the organization, and to the many APA member psychologists who shared their expertise through APA with others in the field and the public,” said APA President Jennifer F. Kelly, PhD.