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How Can Public Health Researchers and Practitioners use COVID-19 Oral History Archives?
Abstract:
The COVID-19 pandemic sparked what may be the largest number of oral history projects ever addressing a single public health issue. These collections range from brief informal efforts like those created in classrooms across the country to rigorous and formal projects led by those with expertise in oral history and archiving. Oral history is a process that creates a product (Lee and Springer, 2020). Much has been written about the process of undertaking oral history in this period, and this process may have its own outcomes that are relevant to public health, including increased understanding and social connectedness in a time of polarization and isolation. In this project, we focus instead on the products of these oral history efforts, and how they might be used to deepen listening and learning within the public health field. In this poster presentation, we will: 1) describe examples of the range and types of existing COVID-19 archives, and give visitors to the poster an opportunity to share information about additional projects or archives addressing COVID-19 that they know of, 2) share ideas about how public health researchers and practitioners might work with these archives in order to deepen listening and learning and to improve public health preparedness, including through attention to what has been called “narrative preparedness”, and 3) gather ideas from visitors about mobilizing and using these important archives to inform public health practice.