Abstract
Introduction to: “Fighting Forward: Pedagogies that Promote and Create a Radical Science for Health Justice”
Vanessa Simonds, ScD1, Rebekka Lee2 and Lisa Moore, DrPH3
(1)Montana State University, Bozeman, MT, (2)Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA, (3)San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA
APHA's 2019 Annual Meeting and Expo (Nov. 2 - Nov. 6)
This session will include practical presentations that focus on pedagogy that enhances capacity for teaching and organizing with radical science for health justice. This includes the pedagogies that are being (re)developed through decolonizing epistemologies and other ways of re-framing knowledge and voice. We call for work that shows how such pedagogy can be carried out, as well as student-led presentations offering a critical analysis of the pedagogy they wish to be part of that may not be currently part of their educational programs. A key focus is on how radical science for equity needs to influence both what we teach and how we teach it. Sound-byte “science” has been used to rationalize the destruction of people and the planet. We need to share practical tools for understanding the world and creating sustainable change. The selected presentations address pedagogic initiatives that variously include (separately or jointly): teachers (i.e., train teachers to teach such material and approaches); students (undergraduates & graduate); community activists, community organizations, and community members; and government employees (whether in public health agencies, other state agencies, or in the legislative or executive branches of government). The pedagogic initiatives discussed connect with current social movements involving reproductive justice, environmental and climate justice, economic justice, restorative criminal justice and racial justice, primarily within the US.
Advocacy for health and health education Diversity and culture Public health or related education
Abstract
Decolonizing Evidence: Learnings from a Multi-Year Partnership Between the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project and San Francisco State University’s Master of Public Health Program
Maureen Rees, MPH1, Adrienne Hall, M.P.H.2, Maria Acosta, MPH3 and Laura Mamo, Ph.D.1
(1)San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA, (2)Health Equity Institute, San Francisco, CA, (3)San Francisco State University, Alameda, CA
APHA's 2019 Annual Meeting and Expo (Nov. 2 - Nov. 6)
Oral histories are powerful tools rendering marginalized voices visible and elevating counter-narratives that are non-reductive. Public health students, in building their methodological skillset, have an opportunity to critically assess research perspectives and question who is considered an “expert.” Activist-academic partnerships provide a platform for shaping students’ engagement with research while contributing to broader social justice efforts. In the Fall 2016 and 2018 semesters, students in San Francisco State University's graduate-level Public Health Inquiry course partnered with representatives from the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project (AEMP) - a data-visualization, data analysis, and storytelling collective - to analyze 16 oral histories from the Narratives of Displacement Oral History Project. The partnership provided students with hands-on experience in design, use, and analysis of qualitative data with an antiracist, feminist, and decolonial lens and a focused analysis of political economies of health amidst rapid displacement. The partnership provided AEMP with newly transcribed oral histories and compiled reports of health-related themes in the data, which contributed to AEMP’s capacity to document the myriad impacts of gentrification and displacement in the Bay Area. By promoting this critical lens in the first semester, the partnership establishes a precedent for students to question knowledge production throughout their graduate school journeys and places their work as students in a broader context with real potential for impact. As a result of the partnership thus far, at least three former students have continued working with AEMP to promote a public health lens in the collective’s analysis of gentrification and displacement and continue this academic partnership.
Public health or related education
Abstract
Advancing an Anti-Racist Agenda in Local Government
Jenna Gaarde, MPH, Zea Malawa, MD, MPH and Solaire Spellen, MPH
San Francisco Department of Public Health, San Francisco, CA
APHA's 2019 Annual Meeting and Expo (Nov. 2 - Nov. 6)
Interpersonal and institutional racism can negatively impact healthcare and public health service delivery leading to poor health outcomes among populations that endure significant health disparities. While the history and practices of our nation’s healthcare system are rooted in racism, most public health professionals and providers do not have a clear sense of what it means to advance anti-racism in practice.
San Francisco Department of Public Health’s Maternal, Child & Adolescent Health’s section is advancing an anti-racist agenda. Through a staff-led Racial Equity Committee, the section has worked towards a culture shift with efforts spanning workforce development to direct service quality improvement. This session will provide an overview of our core values in this work, and provide examples:
1.) Beyond didactics: Implementing tools and action steps
2.) Challenging power & privilege: Recognizing our own power and privilege in our system and challenging others
3.) Accountability & measurement: Conducting ongoing evaluation, assessments, and quality improvement
4.) Sustainability: Building infrastructure and embedding within our programs and initiatives
5.) Normalizing conversations about race: building our stamina to engage in difficult conversations and receive racial feedback
6.) Doing our own work: Naming white silence, assigning homework, and holding ourselves accountable.
We will conclude the session with an overview of Racism as a Root Cause approach and its four criteria, which were developed by the presenters. We will apply the framework to multiple health disparities to develop potential interventions to address racism as a root cause.
Advocacy for health and health education Diversity and culture Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs Public health or related organizational policy, standards, or other guidelines Public health or related public policy Systems thinking models (conceptual and theoretical models), applications related to public health
Abstract
Zine development as a pedagogical tool for critically evaluating how social justice and epidemiology relate
Danielle Gartner, PhD, MS1, Jessica Islam, PhD, MPH2, Corinna Keeler, BA1, Katherine LeMasters, MPH1, Elizabeth McClure, MS1, Arbor Quist, MSPH1 and Adrien Wilke, MSPH1
(1)University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, (2)UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, Chapel Hill, NC
APHA's 2019 Annual Meeting and Expo (Nov. 2 - Nov. 6)
We are representatives of the Epidemiology and Justice Group (Epi & Justice) at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. As a student-run group, we teach each other; advocate for equity and the basic principles of public health in our department; and support research on the history and philosophy of epidemiology, community-led public health principles and practice, and justice-focused epidemiology. Our group coalesced around a desire to incorporate explicit considerations of justice and equity into our epidemiological work, which we often found to be missing from our coursework and mentored research. To cultivate and make space for a more inclusive field of epidemiology, we came together to create a zine (pronounced ‘zeen’), a non-commercial and self-published booklet. Our zine takes collective action to challenge traditional and modern epidemiology and is the first step towards creating slow, transformative change in our classrooms. The goals of our zine are to refine our own ideas about epidemiology and its limitations, build community around these ideas, and outwardly spread knowledge in an accessible format. We worked collectively on a set of zine pages that addressed these goals, creating handmade pages with quotes, figures, and writing that reflect on the language and tools of epidemiology, history of epidemiologic thought, public health ethics in epidemiology, and more. In this session, we will share our zine and reflect on its development process. Attendees will learn about creating a zine as a tool to build a stronger relationship between public health and social justice.
Diversity and culture Epidemiology Public health or related education
Abstract
Disrupting public health education: A social justice pedagogy
Sophia Geffen, MPH1, Julia Roche, MPH, MSW2 and Keilah Jacques, MSW2
(1)Cambridge Health Alliance, Cambridge, MA, (2)Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD
APHA's 2019 Annual Meeting and Expo (Nov. 2 - Nov. 6)
A cultural shift is underway in the field of public health. Social justice activists, health professionals, and the Council on Education for Public Health have all called for the integration of social justice concepts and competencies into public health education. In response to this call for action, the Student Outreach Resource Center (SOURCE) of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has undertaken a multi-year project to develop and implement a social justice pedagogy for public health education. A 43-member Social Justice Task Force comprised of students, faculty, and staff laid the foundation for this pedagogy through 16 collective impact design sessions. SOURCE has developed guiding documents, core competencies, and a curriculum toolkit for this new social justice pedagogy. Core competencies for faculty and students include: Power and Privilege Identification, Social Justice Identity Formation, and Formulating Actions for Change. Curriculum guidelines include tools that orchestrate learning, action, and reflection for personal development, in addition to practical resources that demonstrate key skills such as how to diversify syllabi, and how to disrupt hierarchies of power in the classroom. Current public health pedagogies lack directive for addressing the systemic causes of health inequities (e.g. structural violence, racism, and discrimination). Our hope is that educators can use these tools to create more equitable classrooms that model the just environment that public health professionals strive to create.
Administration, management, leadership Advocacy for health and health education Diversity and culture Public health or related education Public health or related organizational policy, standards, or other guidelines