Critical public health skills include understanding the root cause of systemic, community, and individual public health challenges, incorporating that understanding into program design and management, and communicating the importance of the issue and outcome. This session will lay a foundation for understanding and communicating the root cause of public health challenges through understanding explanatory chains and how understanding them can be used in the dynamic design of day-to-day project design and management. The session will also provide an overview of how these same root cause explanatory chains can transform how we talk about, present, and write about our public health work—driving a different approach to storytelling and advocacy.