National Public Health Week

National Public Health Week is April 4-11, 2022 but the medical library is celebrating all month long! Please join us for two virtual lectures.

"Picturing Public Health” with Bert Hansen: Turning Points in Public Health History Conveyed through Prints"

By Bert Hansen, Professor Emeritus of History at CUNY Baruch College

April 5, 2022 at 4pm

The Cushing/Whitney Medical Library will welcome Bert Hansen, historian of medicine and public health, for an illustrated lecture drawing upon materials that he donated to the Medical Historical Library from 2015 to 2022.

This illustrated lecture will showcase the variety of historical insights that can be discovered in hard-to-find old prints and ephemera, with a spotlight on public health efforts starting in about 1850. Some are shocking, many are humorous, and all bring us closer to the attitudes and awareness of ordinary Americans in former times. This program will consist of a 40-minute PowerPoint presentation, followed by ample time for audience questions.

All are invited to attend this virtual lecture to gain a greater sense of the rich history of public health in America.

Infodemic Management in Black American Communities: Strategies for Creating Culturally Relevant Health Information Literacy Interventions

By Bethany McGowan, Associate Professor of Library Science and Health Sciences Information Specialist at Purdue University

April 25, 2022 at 4pm

Bethany McGowan is an Associate Professor in the Libraries and School of Information Studies at Purdue University, where her teaching and research focus on designing health information literacy interventions for academic and community settings and on teaching learners to use data and information to solve real-world problems. She is a certified World Health Organization (WHO) Infodemic Manager, trained to design and evaluate health information literacy interventions and strengthen individual and community resilience to mis/dis/malinformation campaigns. Her current research includes an IMLS-funded project that examines how cultural and historical influencers impact health-information-seeking behaviors in Black American communities and a collaboration with the U.S. Department of State to develop strategies that make it easier to identify malinformation campaigns.

In this lecture, Professor McGowan will:

discuss how health information-seeking behavior in Black American communities can be modulated by social, cultural, environmental, and historical influences
discuss strategies for raising one's consciousness of and sensitivity to authentic community health information needs
illustrate strategies for creating culturally relevant interventions by reviewing how she created a community engagement campaign to deliver health information literacy interventions to local African American communities