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Name: Jakar Delacruz (they/them)

Location: Seattle, WA

What I did: I was able to conduct two oral histories, one in my mother tongue, and another with someone I got to know at a deeper level in exploring their identity. Through the oral history experience, I was able to sit back, listen, and document their stories. In my first Spanish interview, I listened to Tania Z. Perez De La Cruz, a mother, immigrant, and waitress who was reduced to working one day a week during the pandemic. Because of her status, she was not able to receive any government assistance but thrived on being able to take care of her family and even get married at the Mexican Consulate in Seattle, WA. This resilience was jaw-dropping and the artifact that was given was a picture of her and her partner signing their civil matrimony. In the interview with my classmate and friend, Tina Trinh (she/they) I had the honor of talking about identity and exploration during the COVID-19 as an Asian American Public Health student with regards to her advocacy work, teaching, and growing up in a predominantly white neighborhood. Being able to define yourself away from structures that place you into one thing or the other can cause harm, as Tina ventures into teaching, they hope that they can continue using the introspection of solace that COVID-19 brought to be more aligned with their needs. This oral history was powerful for me as someone who keeps being defined by outside structures and hope to continue building solidarity amongst our intersectional identities.

Public Health Impact:

Using their voices in research means integration of the bigger picture when policy strives to fill these gaps. As well as the opportunity to create generational wealth that many community members have not had access to in having their voices be part of the public record stored within Washington state records. Social Justice is the stories they tell and creates a permanent change to their records. Having no formal research experience, I believe this internship would give me the tools to learn how to capture these stories through qualitative research that can impact public health policy with my experience in epidemiology and public health research courses for public health. I will continue to hold my lived experience as valuable along with those I have interviewed, in finding the gaps within health disparities of not just COVID-19 but diseases to relieve equal treatment and right to health.

What I learned:

It has opened my eyes to the importance of occupational health and worker safety needed to be accounted for in underserved populations. I also believe that my fight will do just that, fight for agency, and fight for a voice within our health care infrastructure to capture all of us. My transition as a front-line worker to a public health leader would be essential for my communities in diversifying history itself in generations of Latinx, non-binary people. My lived experience with these communities has contributed to generations of intellect.

Media: Tania's Artifact 💍👰🏽‍♀️

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Seattle Unsheltered: Housing First Podcast

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Seattle Unsheltered: Housing First Podcast

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Name: Megan Robillard
Location: Seattle, WA
Team: Jamie Costales, Sam Harik, Megan Robillard, Stephanie Wilkins

What we did:
Conducted interviews with community experts and crafted a podcast to describe the Housing First model of service for unhoused individuals and give an overview of the model’s benefits and challenges.

Public Health Impact:
We hope that this project will encourage public health practitioners, and others, to utilize and subscribe to a Housing First model of support. This includes an emphasis on low-barrier housing such as that for individuals who use drugs and harm reduction strategies enacted in combination with providing housing. This has the potential to drastically improve the quality of life and health of individuals living unhoused and the health of the community as a whole, as housing is a basic necessity for enacting other healthy behaviors.

What we learned:
We learned the importance of teamwork and delegation in the creation of a cohesive, well-researched product and we learned the importance of engaging with members of the community on which our work is focused, in order to develop a relationship and uplift their voices, stories, and experiences. We learned to gather information from the perspectives of multiple people and synthesize their information in a way that blends together to showcase all sides of the subject matter.

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Surge Reproductive Justice Podcast: Prenatal Care in ICE Detention Centers Podcast 

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Surge Reproductive Justice Podcast: Prenatal Care in ICE Detention Centers Podcast 

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Team: Neha Krishnam, Anevay Avila, Selena Villa, Shurlon Brathwaite
Location: Seattle, WA

What we did:
Our group created a 10 minute podcast in collaboration with Surge Reproductive Justice. Our podcast was focused on reproductive justice in the ICE detention center. For this podcast, we interviewed a member from the Surge organization (Karla) with the goal of informing and highlighting the lack of reproductive resources in the ICE detention center for pregnant individuals. The topics covered within our conversation with Karla were birth/labor, access to prenatal care, and mental health.

Public Health Impact:
By creating this podcast, our group hopes to inform our audience and the public health world about the numerous challenges and lack of proper prenatal care within ICE detention centres. This podcast will raise awareness to the increased barriers to care as well as inform the audience about the systems of inequality within marginalised populations that causes these individuals and the next generation to stay within these structured realms in society- causing greater disparity between populations. Through our conversation with Karla and hearing her experience as an advocate within SURGE, public health practitioners will be able to gain better insight into the specific needs of the pregnant community within ICE detention centres and hopefully, utilise this knowledge to further develop equitable care.

What we learned:
Through creating our podcast we experienced the barriers that public health professionals face in research. Due to the human rights violations perpetrated in ICE detention centers, there is little to no information about the true conditions individuals face while detained. We were able to learn about the numerous challenges including shackling and lack of prenatal care and reflected upon the immense inequality in our society. Through our conversation with Karla we learned that whilst there are public health efforts to help this community, there is not enough research guiding public health professionals on how to care for pregnant individuals in ICE detention centres. This new information puts into perspective how many barriers public health professionals face against corporations who do not want change.

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Surge Reproductive Justice Podcast: Decriminalizing Sex Work for QTBIPOC Sex Workers

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Surge Reproductive Justice Podcast: Decriminalizing Sex Work for QTBIPOC Sex Workers

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Names: Ruby Padgett, Mak Ndamele, Mai Nguyen, and Shely Gonzalez

What we did:
We worked with Surge Reproductive Justice to create a 10 minute podcast about decriminalizing sex work for QTBIPOC sex workers. This podcast included an interview with Jackie Vaughn, who graciously gave her time and helped us better understand abolition, legalization versus decriminalization, bodily autonomy, how QTBIPOC sex worker liberation is a reproductive justice issue, and what we all can do work towards liberation for QTBIPOC sex workers.

Public Health Impact:
During the creation of our podcast, we hoped that we would not only raise awareness about the stigmas associated with QTBIPOC sex workers, but also provide introductory education on sex work and call people to understand how decriminalizing sex work ultimately benefits everyone.

What we learned:
Focusing our efforts on communities who are the most stigmatized and marginalized and centering them in creating policies is essential. We need to center those communities in the policies we create or they won’t be inclusive.

Podcast Clip:

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Seattle Unsheltered: Reproductive Justice Among Sex Workers Experiencing Homelessness

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Seattle Unsheltered: Reproductive Justice Among Sex Workers Experiencing Homelessness

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Name: Lyda Ebadani, Marlisa Hall, and Elizabeth Lindo
Location: King County, WA

What we did:

Throughout our capstone experience we have worked as a team to create a 10 minute podcast episode to be featured on Seattle Unsheltered. Our podcast episode focuses on the intersectionality between homelessness and reproductive justice among sex workers in King County, Washington. To bring our podcast to life, we researched data about sexual health, stigma, and criminalization of sex worker to better understand health disparities among this community. Our team interviewed two integral members of our community, Dr. Jen Balkus an Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of Washington and Tepatasi Vaina the Community Engagement Manager for UTOPIA Seattle. After conducting our interviews  we developed a podcast script and utilized Audacity, an open-source digital audio editor and recording application, to produce and edit our podcast .

Public Health Impact:

Our project aims to educate stakeholders in the King County Sexual Health Clinic of the diverse reproductive healthcare priorities of homeless sex workers, who experience frequent criminalization of their work. Our podcast seeks to hold local healthcare clinics and stakeholders accountable for implementing inclusive healthcare practices that normalize seeking reproductive and family planning services. Improving the visibility of reproductive justice among sex workers that prioritizes their lived experiences and intersectionality is among our major priorities in publishing this podcast. Our action statement is to improve the accessibility of seeking reproductive services within and beyond the clinical setting by holding accountable systems of criminalization and stigmatization that hinder seeking support services. Alleviating the incidence of Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) among the unhoused sex worker population is a secondary goal of this project, as communicating the importance of providing readily accessible contraception and family planning resources is critical for improving the quality of wellbeing in sex worker communities.

What we learned:

We learned that public health issues such as homelessness are very complex and the intersectionality's among vulnerable groups such as those who may be queer or trans, are involved in sex work , and experiencing homelessness are all identities that need to be addressed for equitable health outcomes in this community. It’s very important to recognize the intersectionality of individuals because each of their identities may be preventing them from seeking the reproductive health services they need and is putting them at greater risk of acquiring an STI. We’ve learned that stigma associated with both homelessness and sex work and the criminalization of sex work are some of the major drivers for this community not getting the care they need. Sex work is a real profession and many people are involved in it for many different reasons. Public Health practice is all about fostering partnerships and creating relationships with other individuals in public health and community organizations and we would not be able to create our final capstone without any of them. In the midst of a pandemic, we’ve seen how quickly misinformation can go around and in the age of technology, public health information and stories can be shared in various ways such as a podcast.

A clip of our podcast:

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Name: Tupou Vaenuku
Location: Seattle, WA
What I did: I conducted two interviews for oral histories that will be saved in the Washington State Historic Societies COVID-19 archives forever. My first interviewee was my sister, Nia Vaenuku and she shared her experience of being a student during a pandemic. Her narrative also reflects many peoples experience within the Tongan community during COVID-19. My second interviewee is a peer from my SPH492 class. Her name is Ariana Dies and she is of Mexican/Latinx ethnicity and it was very informative that I got to interview her because I was able to get a different perspective of how other BIPOC communities are thriving through this pandemic. There were many overlap connections between these two interviews and the community they represent and it gave me a sense of respect and solidarity for communities that are different from mine but share the same experiences. I also gathered photos for three photo voices that will be submitted to the museum as well. These photo voices reflect my own personal experience as a public health student during COVID-19.
Public Health Impact:
Working with the Washington State Historic Site has been an amazing opportunity because I received the chance to capture important history during Covid-19 directly from diverse communities in the state of Washington. With this information future public health policies can be made to support BIPOC communities during and after COVID-19.
What I learned:
I learned so much during this capstone project in terms of personal development, public health practice, future public health professions, systems of healthcare, and advocacy towards public health issues. I gained the knowledge and skill sets needed to be the best public health practitioner I can be.
Media: Me during spring quarter at UW as a Senior, wearing a mask in the Quad.

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Name: Bonnie Leung
Location: Seattle, WA

What I did:
The Vulnerable Populations Strategic Initiative (VPSI) capstone project is a community outreach program focused on providing health education about strokes and the emergency response system to King County seniors. Last quarter, we provided weekly health outreach to King County residents by mail and phone. In the spring, we conducted evaluation surveys with residents who received outreach phone calls to gauge their understanding of strokes and EMS.

Public Health Impact:
Stroke is the fifth leading cause of death in King County; therefore, a potential public health impact is increasing awareness regarding strokes and EMS utilization. We hope our outreach encourages individuals in these vulnerable populations to recognize the symptoms of stroke, call early, and receive treatment quickly. Ultimately, VPSI may be able to help decrease the number of stroke-related deaths in King County.

What I learned:
Working  with VPSI allowed me to learn how to provide health outreach to diverse populations. Through our phone outreach, I had the opportunity to communicate with diverse residents.  Most importantly, I was able to hone my communication skills for public health outreach and gain an understanding of the most critical skill—listening. For example, one of my residents did not speak English very well, but by changing the way I worded the script, I was able to schedule an alternate time to call with someone from her household that spoke English fluently.

Media:
evaluation survey spreadsheet

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Name: Anika Parker
Location: Seattle, WA
What did I do?
I conducted oral histories, collected supportive artifacts, and developed a photovoice project in partnership with the Washington State Historical Society to expand their collections about COVID-19 experiences. In Winter Quarter, I conducted an oral history and identified a supportive artifact with my family member Cyndi Parris. She discussed navigating unemployment, adapting her job, spending quality time with her daughters, working with their school district, and reflecting. In Spring Quarter, I conducted an oral history and identified a supportive artifact with my peer Olga Zhosyan. She discussed navigating unemployment, job searching, moving, remote learning, spending quality time with her family, felting gnomes, and reflecting. I also developed a photovoice project of three photos and respective captions.
What is the potential public health impact of this project?
This project can contribute to alleviating disparities in representation and preservation of history through including voices of underrepresented people. It can reveal next steps that cannot be understood without certain lived experiences. It can inform public health approaches and solutions in the future through including diverse perspectives and learning from this pandemic.
What did I learn about public health practice from this project?
I learned the importance of community engagement and qualitative methods. These can center communities to listen to their strengths and needs to validate experiences, develop connections, and know how to be supportive. These can also illustrate or contextualize statistics. I learned how to better create space for people to share their experiences in their own words through their own understandings. This meant I practiced active listening and examined my positionality.

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Parker, Anika_Olga Zhosyan_Interview Video Clip

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Name: Tina Trinh

Location: Seattle, WA

What I did: With the support of WSHS staff, Nola, Anjulie, and my peers, I had the opportunity to conduct 2 oral histories, collect artifacts, and create a photo-voice that centered the COVID-19 pandemic experience. My first oral history highlighted the positive impacts of K-12 virtual learning on mental health and well-being through an interview with Anthony, my brother, who has been completing his sophomore year of high school online. The following quarter, I partnered with fellow classmate and friend, Jakar, to discuss their challenges and accomplishments from the perspective of a frontline healthcare worker and public health student in the realms of Latinx and LGBTQIA+ community advocacy, self-preservation and capacity building, and navigating institutions as someone who holds marginalized identities. As the last part of this historical portfolio, I selected 3 photos that I felt represented my pandemic experience as a public health student and provided captions that reflected their meaning to me. With much excitement, our projects will be incorporated into an exhibit to be ready in August!

Potential Public Health impact: On an interpersonal level, these projects created a space for facilitated reflection on this trial of a pandemic as an act of introspective self-care and growth. There has been both personal and collective trauma from this experience and it’s important to actively process these events in order to heal and move forward. Within the broader context, we have produced an entire collection of feelings, thoughts, and opinions from an incredibly diverse range of people in our communities. Thus, from today and into the future, the available data on who the people of the pandemic were, what they were doing, and how they preserved through this period of time is closer to being actually representative than if this project never happened, which aids the public health field in learning from this experience in an equitable way. And that, is a significant thing.

What I learned: Although methods of constructing (or reconstructing) history and public health work initially seemed loosely related, I’ve now discovered the connected and necessary functions that both fields offer each other. The introduction of life course perspective cemented the idea that an individual’s health is not just their condition today but is contingent on the history their body holds and the familial generations that came before them. Health is living history. In regard to conceptualizing the methods we utilized, I’ve learned that oral history is an empowering tool that can dismantle the privileged limits imposed on who and what is “deserving” of being history. In particular, narratives of those who are silenced by Eurocentric linguistic standards can be reclaimed through interviews conducted in their primary language -- equitably shifting back the legitimacy of their lived experiences that is often awarded to privileged voices.
Below is my photovoice:

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Name: Isabelle Parkin
Location: Seattle, WA
What I did: I interviewed my mother, Marife Parkin, for an oral history to learn more about her experience during the Covid-19 pandemic. Marife is a paraeducator in the Vancouver School District, so her experience navigating the online teaching world was difficult in the beginning. Her students had difficulties accessing the correct technologies in order to continue to pursue an education through the pandemic. We discussed her job, the lessons that she has learned, and what she's looking forward to in the future post-covid.
Public Health Impact: Oral histories allow people in the future to understand what people living in the present experienced. This is especially important to document during a large public health crisis, such as the Covid-19 pandemic. Future public health officials can use the experiences and stories documented through oral histories to create a better plan and more efficient practices so difficulties that are experienced during the pandemic may not have to be experienced if we have to do something like this again. Having first account stories of educators is important, so those in the future can learn what worked and what didn't and how to best help their students continue to learn in a crisis.
What I learned: I learned how to professionally conduct an informational interview. We conducted two oral histories during our time in the capstone classes and from the first I learned how to better conduct the second interview and get the kind of responses I believe will best be used in the future of public health. I also learned a lot about what different people experienced during the pandemic. We may all have experienced the same public health crisis, but the way we each handled it differed greatly.
Media:

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Name: Nicole Briggs

Location: Seattle, WA

What I did: I interviewed a family friend, Connie Galer, for an oral history to capture her Covid-19 experience. Connie works for the Lynnwood Police Department as a police management analyst and has been working remotely since the pandemic began. Connie shares how she transitioned to working remotely and her hopes for what a post pandemic life will look like. I also interviewed a classmate, Angel Cheung, who will be graduating this Spring. We talked about how Covid-19 has altered her senior year, mental health, and what graduating during a pandemic looks like.

Public Health Impact:

This project allows life during Covid-19 to be documented from a diverse group of voices. Oral histories are powerful tools for documenting history because they capture a broad range of experiences. This is important to public health because it captures inequities experienced during Covid-19 and lifts up the voices of marginalized groups of people. Knowing where disparities have existed from hearing people’s Covid-19 experiences could inform what public health measures need to be taken.

What I learned:

I learned how to conduct an interview while fully listening and not interrupting. Oral histories are a great way to hear stories from different communities so it’s important to not interrupt with your own biases to accurately capture their story. I also gained an appreciation for community engagement and capturing the voices of people who may not feel like they have an important story to share. Every story is important and valuable in order to document the history of Covid-19.
Media:

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Name: Lidya Beyene
Location: Seattle, WA
What I did: Throughout the past two quarters, my capstone site was VPSI.  It is a public health research initiative that conduct programmatic scientific and case-based evaluations of Seattle’s Emergency Medical Services (EMS). This program seeks to improve EMS care delivery to all King County residents regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, age, SES, culture or languages spoken. The main specific duty I did was to educate seniors on 9-11 emergency dialing. The vital role as a health educator during the COVID 19 pandemic is direct intervention, empowering King County residents, building the bridges between residents and King County EMS, providing trust and comfort in a scary and difficult time, and 1st line defense towards reducing mortality.
Public Health Impact: The main public health functions we operated are the following: Communicate effectively to inform and educate people about health, factors that influence it, and how to improve it. Strengthen, support, and mobilize communities and partnerships to improve health. Create, champion, and implement policies, plans, and laws that impact health. Utilize legal and regulatory actions designed to improve and protect the public’s health. Build and maintain a strong organizational infrastructure for public health.
What I learned: The one important thing I learned is the influence of misinformation on people's lives. I would never assume that the COVID 19 pandemic will have an effect on using EMS and other hospital services.

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Name: Fatima Fahiye, Jessica Dang, Jo Kuramkote, Nhi Nguyen, Yongkang Zhou
Location: Seattle, WA
What we did: Our group’s focus was on immigrants and multicultural populations. We created flyers catered toward these groups for Bloodworks Northwest to raise awareness of blood donation in these communities.

We emailed and promoted our flyers on social media outlets such as Instagram, spreading the importance of blood donations to our friends and family. We also contacted multicultural and immigrant-focused organizations such as Casa Latina and UW MAPS and asked them to spread around our flyers.

Public Health Impact: The potential impacts of this project are increasing diversity and amount of blood in the blood supply in order to help more people within our target communities. The more blood we can gather, the more patients we can save. The more diversity in the blood supply, the more likely someone receives a blood donation that matches their blood type perfectly.
What we learned: We learnt that a lot of public health practice is crafting health messages that resonate with a specific audience and being sensitive to how certain communities perceive certain information. As a group, we improved our communication, collaboration and outreach skills by creating a visually appealing yet informative flyer and contacting various organizations to improve our cause.

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Name: Ariana Deniz
Location: Seattle, WA
What I did: Between both winter and spring quarter I conducted two oral histories, one with my mom and one with my classmate. I was able to ask questions about their experiences during the pandemic, whether it involved their income/job, their mental health, or changes to their day-to-day life. Between both the oral histories I learned a lot about how COVID affected people so differently. For my mom, I was able to learn about how it was being a business woman, maintaining her daycare open in a city that had one of the highest rates of COVID in the state. For my classmate, I was able to learn about how difficult it was to stay motivated and continue excelling in her classwork. In addition to the oral histories, I also completed a photo voice project in which I chose 3 photos to represent what it's been like being a public health student during a pandemic. The 3 photos I chose included my work space (a place where I spend 90% of my time now), my favorite hike (a place where I can get away from everything), and one of my roommate and I (my roommate who has been my quarantine buddy). These 3 images are very meaningful to me and representative of the person I have been this past year.
Public Health Impact: Oral histories and photo voice are two very powerful manners to showcase just how different people's experiences are - especially during one of the toughest moments we've all faced. I felt very grateful to be able to allow for two people to tell their stories for our future generations to listen to and have a better understanding as to how much our lives changed. This project will also help our future generations make deeper connections rather than thinking about the pandemic as just statistical data.
What I learned: This capstone project made me learn a lot about myself. I learned how to communicate better and how to listen better. I learned how important it is to not try and compare my story to the stories of others, because reality is that there are so many factors that are different between each one of us. I also learned just how important it is to be compassionate with one another because we have no idea what difficulties people are facing. However, ultimately, I have learned how showcasing oral histories ties directly to public health and mitigating health disparities that still continue.

Photo voice:

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Name: Maddy VanSpeybroeck
Location: Seattle, WA
What I did: I completed two oral history interviews, one with my classmate and one with my friend and peer, on what they had experienced in the past year living and working throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. We discussed how our identities shape our lives, the power of community, what it has taken to survive this pandemic and everything that they had gained and lost over the course of the year. Key takeaways from both interviews were centered around the role that capitalism played in exacerbating the pandemic and making individuals lives more difficult. Conducting oral histories created space for individuals to reflect on their year and honor themselves and begin the process of healing. In addition to the interviews, I completed a photo-voice project. I collected photos from the past year of my life that captured the experience of living through the pandemic as a public health student. Doing this documentation in the photo-voice project in the midst of the current pandemic as opposed to retroactively meant that we were able to collect a lot of important information that would have been lost if we had tried to document people's experiences once life had gone back to normal. By speaking to people in the midst of the pandemic we were able to capture experiences that otherwise would have been lost.
Our contributions from the photo voice and oral history projects will be turned into an exhibit at the Washington State Historical Society where it will hopefully inspire collective healing.

Public Health Impact:
There is a lot of collective healing that needs to be done around the COVID-19 pandemic. Our local and global community has been experiencing a collective trauma that has not been processed yet. By conducting oral history interviews, we created space for our community members to reflect on this year and what has happened in their lives. We hope that sharing this project prompts greater reflection from all on what they have learned and experienced in the past year so that they heal vicariously as well. As history is often told from the perspective of those in power. We did our best to center marginalized voices as a way to change how history is told and make it reflective of the full spectrum of experiences.

What I learned:
I learned the importance of letting communities tell their stories in their own voice. There is a lot that can be learned from listening to people’s needs and desires. We learned very practical interviewing techniques and worked to improve our active listening and empathy skills so that we were better prepared to guide our interview subject through their oral history. I learned how to better hold space for others and the importance of bonding over a shared experience

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Name: Tamia Rios
Location: Seattle, Wa
What I did: During winter quarter our work was centered around sending out outreach mail to residents, half of which we would end calling and half of which were control residents who only received the mail. The outreach mail was an informational letter describing the seriousness of strokes and the importance of calling 911 during the COVID-19 pandemic. It also included an acronym and depiction of the FAST exam which is a way to detect a stroke. The only difference in the control and experimental letters was that the experimental letters alerted the resident that we would be reaching out to them within a certain time frame. Each week we sent out 10 of these letters. Then each week we were assigned residents to reach out to with the outreach regarding stroke and heart attack awareness. If the resident didn't answer then we would leave a voicemail and attempt to call again two times later in the week. All of this information we recorded on a tracking sheet to measure the the dates/times we called and whether the call was successful, meaning if they answered and agreed to the outreach. Or if it was unsuccessful, meaning they didn't answer any of the days or didn't agree to the outreach. A lot of my calls ended up just being voicemails which I think was because my shift times were from 2-5pm which is when people are working. During spring quarter we continued with the outreach for half the quarter. Then for the last four weeks, we did evaluation calls instead, where we called residents and asked if they were willing to answer questions regarding strokes and emergency medical services. These residents that we called for the evaluation survey were all residents who received either the outreach letter, voicemails, or calls. If they agreed to complete the survey then we recorded their answers in a tracking sheet.

Public Health Impact:
I think this outreach was really important for the health of older residents in King County. Hopefully the people that we reached will have a better understanding of the severity of strokes and the importance of calling 911, especially during COVID-19. I think it's natural for a lot of residents to be hesitant to call during COVID-19 because they don't want to risk getting sick. This has resulted in the numbers of calls to 911 and EMS dropping significantly. I also think it was important that we relayed information about stroke symptoms. A lot of residents were unaware of the FAST exam as a way to detect a stroke. I think also it was impactful that the outreach was attempting to ensure that residents get good care from EMS regardless of race, socio-economic status, or languages.

What I learned:
I think one of the most important things I learned from this outreach was how to complete community outreach while also having difficult conversations with residents. A lot of residents that I spoke with have experienced a stroke first hand, whether it was them personally or a loved one. Rather than just moving forward with the script, I think it was important to actively listen to them and allow them to share what they needed to. At first when someone would share this information I would feel uncomfortable and wouldn't know how to respond, but then as time moved I learned how to navigate the situation with empathy and finish the outreach

Media:

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Name: Kevin Yu
Location: Seattle, WA
What I did: Throughout both Winter and Spring quarter, I participated in community health outreach as well as conducting evaluation surveys  of the previous quarter's work. During Winter quarter, our outreach's purpose was to educate residents, from a list given by King County Public Health, on continuing to 911 during COVID-19 as well as the tell-tale signs of a stroke. Every week, we would be assigned residents to call during our scheduled hours, mine was Sunday-Tuesday 2:00PM-5:00PM, and leave voicemails if they didn't answer. A lot of my outreach consisted of voicemails, but when I was able to go through our phone script, it was very rewarding to receive feedback from residents about how much they appreciated all of our work. I had many interesting calls because I would try to build rapport with the residents by asking about their lives and  communicating with them as if I was in person conducting this outreach. Along with this outreach, we also sent out control letters to residents in the Greater Seattle area. These residents didn't receive a phone call, but got mailed paperwork describing the same education as our calls. Throughout this past Spring Quarter, we mainly focused conducting surveys with the previous quarter's residents. These surveys consisted of questions revolving around what they learned from the outreach. Residents would answer how much they agreed with a statement, such as "I feel confident that EMS services would be able to help me identify signs of a stroke", and if they remember the FAST exam as a way to identify a stroke.

Public Health Impact: In the past year, the pandemic has caused the number of calls to 911 and EMS personnel to decrease significantly due to misconceptions about contracting COVID-19 from EMS personnel. This has created problems with individuals unwilling to utilize emergency services. Our project has significantly supported residents by providing trusted information about the truth of calling 911 during COVID-19 and how to better respond to signs of a stroke. The important factor when responding to yourself or someone you know experiencing a stroke is time. There is an hour window when a stroke is most treatable which is why it is so important to respond quickly and efficiently. Our project's aim was to reassure confidence in residents about utilizing 911 for any emergency during the ongoing pandemic and mitigating the falsehoods of EMS personnel.

What I learned: From my final capstone project, I learned that in the day and age of media and highly accessible forms of 'news', it becomes harder for Public Health practitioners to control that flow of information especially during something like a pandemic. Prior to our work, I didn't consider that people would stop utilizing 911 because they feared EMS personnel would spread the virus to them. This falls into how misinformation plays a massive role in individual's response to their own health emergencies and we also seeing this playing out in vaccine distribution. Lastly, I learned that ultimately a lot of health care education requires patience and compassion to understand why people believe in these misconceptions. We learned about effectively communicating with loved ones and others about tough conversations like 'fake news'. Ultimately, a great deal of compassion and understanding is needed to effectively debunk misinformation and to educate about the truth behind health care.

Media:

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Names: Veronica Ahumada, Isabel Baughn, Ary Colin

What we did:

During the last 6 months we have been researching and gathering information on the Seattle Homeless population. Throughout this process we have collaborated with the Doorway Project and conducted interviews to learn more about the homeless population through dialoguing with a member of the homeless community and an individual working to expand and implement resources for this community. Our group used these unique perspectives and experiences to create a podcast that would allow us to spread awareness on the increasing homeless population in Seattle. Our group was able to focus on the groups that are more likely to be affected by homelessness and listen to their stories.  Through these stories we were able to capture and highlight the homeless disparity that disproportionately affects the BIPOC community and those with minority identities. Through showcasing this discrepancy, we are able to create a meaningful impact with our project and spread awareness within our community.

Public health impact:

We had the shared goal of centering the experiences of unhoused community members to be able to shed light on the harm that the city inflicts on them. Our podcast was intended to be heard by different stakeholders in Seattle, including City Council, and housed members of the greater Seattle community. One public health impact of our project includes education on how our law enforcement harms unhoused folks, and sharing how we have so many different oppressive systems and pipelines that lead to experiencing homelessness. Having this understanding helps to combat the stigma generally associated with unhoused folks. We also had the opportunity to speak to an unhoused youth in the University District, who shared his thoughts on resources he would like to have seen growing up to disrupt his pathway to homelessness, which is a valuable consideration. His suggestions, along with the thoughts of other folks who have experienced or are currently experiencing homelessness should be centered in public health efforts in order to truly combat that homelessness crisis.

What we learned:

Public health work often involves working with multiple stakeholders and people from different communities to identify needs and come together to work towards a common goal. Working on this podcast remotely through a pandemic and with a partner organization meant we had to work on our abilities to adapt to changes. With this capstone project we learned how as future public health practitioners can use our privilege and positionality to create a platform to uplift the voices of our community members. In the public health major we are given the tools necessary to address disparities, work towards health equity, and work alongside community to make meaningful impacts. The goals public health practice work to achieve are challenging and complex but attainable when we all work together.

Clip from our podcast:

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Name: Gurkaran Parhar

Location: Seattle, Washington (King County)

What I did: Throughout the winter and spring quarter of 2020-2021, VPSI conducted public health outreach to residents age 65 or older across King County during the COVID-19 pandemic. With a partnership with the EMS division of Seattle we were given a tracking form with names and numbers of residents where we sent out weekly letters and conducted weekly phone calls regarding stroke outreach. Each student was responsible for 10 residents to reach out to every week, 5 from a control group and 5 from an experimental group. The 5 residents from the control group we were just responsible for mailing out letters to. For the 5 residents from the experimental group, we were responsible for sending out letters and following up with phone calls hoping to further deliver our message using a phone script that was provided to us. If the call was successful and we were able to perform outreach, we would highlight the residents name with a green highlight on the tracking form. If the resident did not answer after 3 attempted phone calls or was not interested in the outreach, then the name was highlighted red to indicate that the outreach was unsuccessful. During spring quarter, we conducted an evaluation phone call where we would call back residents that were reached out too and asked them survey questions regarding EMS and stroke and whether they remembered the FAST exam, which is a way to identify a stroke. We also asked questions regarding the efficacy of the project to determine how well they were able to retain the information.

What is the potential public health impact of this project? The purpose of the outreach was to provide information regarding stroke. During the pandemic, the number of 911 phone calls were decreasing while the number of stroke-related deaths in King County were increasing. We believed that this trend was occurring because of the fear of contracting the virus. So our job was to reach out to residents and reassure them that it's still safe to call 911 in cases of emergency and that there were protocols in place to help keep them and first responders safe from the coronavirus. We also wanted to educate residents regarding stroke and help them identify a stroke using the FAST exam. This way, if they ever encounter a stroke themselves or with someone who is encountering a stroke, they can quickly identify it and call 911. We informed residents that time is of essence when encountering a stroke and that an untreated stroke could lead to serious health complications.

What did I learn about public health practice from the final capstone project? I learned that even though we couldn’t perform this outreach in-person, adjustments can always be made and were able to do it virtually. I was able to engage in a lot of meaningful conversations with residents during the phone outreach and many were supportive and appreciative of what we were doing. Since the elderly have a tendency to forget a lot, I think VPSI was a great opportunity to reach out to many people and offer our knowledge and resources so that they know they are being thought of by personally reaching out. I noticed as the vaccine began rolling out, many of the residents let me know that they got vaccinated which was a good sign and let me know that the fear of acquiring the virus wasn’t impacting them as much as they were better protected.

Media:

Outreach letter that would be sent out.

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Washington State Historical Society (WSHS)

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Washington State Historical Society (WSHS)

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Name: Lauren Stroemel
Location: Everett, WA; Seattle, WA

What I did:
Throughout winter and spring quarter, I recorded experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic through two oral histories and a photo voice project. For my first oral history, I interviewed my mother who works as a clinical psychologist. I wanted to share her experience of working in healthcare during the pandemic, but also to shed light on the mental health impacts of the pandemic and its magnitude. The second oral history I conducted was with my fellow classmate, highlighting the experience of a UW student during the pandemic and the unique challenges they faced in navigating living, working, and attending school while at home. Lastly, the photo voice project was centered around my own personal experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. I chose images and captions that captured life as a public health student during a pandemic, but also the distinctive moments I had with my family and processing life during a historic health crisis.

Public health impact:
At first glance story telling seems unrelated to public health, but in reality it was a uniquely powerful tool for collecting contextual information. Oral histories and photo voice allow a broad gathering of information that incorporates the many intersections and individualities of a person's experience, which is critical in understanding how gaps and barriers play a role in delivering equitable health services. Furthermore, the information we captured is now part of the historical record, ensuring that a diverse set of experiences can be referenced for future pandemic and health crisis responses. This is significant in that it will hopefully be used to create a more equitable and effective public health response for future generations.

What I learned:
This capstone project gave me a deep appreciation for the information that cannot be captured by numbers and quantitative data. Since public health is heavily founded in science, the numbers side of the work is often set atop the hierarchy of evidence. While hard data certainly has value, it fails to capture the full extent of barriers towards health because it will only reveal what the researchers know to collect. Oral histories and photo voice reformat this by recording what the communities have to share, independent of the knowledge of public health researchers.

Snippet from my interview with my mom, Dr. Julie Stroemel:

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Names:
Seka Galea'i, Ella Strange, Kyan Feller, Sabrina Kadir

Location:
Seattle, WA

What we did:
Our group created a podcast centering perinatal care for incarcerated people that includes outside research on health disparities and an interview with Jackie Vaughn (the Executive Director of Surge Reproductive Justice). Some topics covered in the podcast include an overview of reproductive justice, lack of research among pregnant incarcerated people, impact of research centering white cis bodies, and effects of racism/gender based violence on people’s health.

Public health impact:
The public health impact of our project is to highlight the disparities in research and in reproductive health among incarcerated pregnant people. In our interview with Jackie Vaugh, we talk about how the severe lack of research around pregnant incarcerated people perpetuates invisibility and lack of support, as well as the violence disproportionately experienced by Black folks, incarcerated or not. Through this interview and our work with Surge throughout the past two quarters, we've learned of the history of Reproductive Justice, how intersectionality is an important focal point that should not be disregarded, and how intentionally giving voice to and centering the communities most impacted is important in striving for change and increasing empowerment for these communities to take control over their health and their lives.

What we learned:
One of the most important things we learned is how deeply rooted perinatal healthcare inequities are in our country’s history. That is why research and gathering data on these issues is so vital for public health to do especially for BIPOC communities whoes issues usually go unnoticed and unheard. We also learned that in order to do so, public health practice must work with these communities directly to learn from them about what is needed in order to create lasting impacts.

Snippet of our interview with Jackie Vaughn:

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Washington State Historical  Society (WSHS)

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Washington State Historical  Society (WSHS)

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Name: Maria Benitez

Location: Seattle, Washington

What I did:
Over the past 2 quarters, I have conducted 2 Oral Histories of WA residents about there personal experiences with the pandemic. The first interview was with my sister, and the other was with a peer in PH Major. I had the opportunity to listen about the details that have had impacts on there everyday lives since COVID-19 began. I also had the opportunity to work on 3 photovoice's that  depict certain aspects about the Pandemic through my personal lens.

Potential Public Health Impact:
Oral histories are a good way to provide a platform for people to speak about their experiences. It provides context to bigger structural issues within our society. By having these preserved, the public can be informed about potential experiences that might bring a sense of social justice. By partnering with WSHS we were able to preserve these valuable points in history that now can be access and utilized to represent this historical moment that has had tremendous health impacts. I hope that this creates the ability to engage in providing resources to communities.

What I learned:
Through this experience, I had the opportunity to learn about others experiences. I had the ability to strengthen my active listening and communication skills. As well as understand the power that comes from a story. Every story matters, every individual matters and every single part of their story matters. What I know now, is that it is important to capture these moments that support your personal experience. Thinking about public health practice, it is something that you carry with you and can be strengthen. To really be able to practice implementation it starts with engaging with the community. A communities perspective about their struggles can really create a holistic view on potential programs or ideas to move forward. To really have lasting impacts, engaging with community is and was the best way to put into practice.

A snippet of one of my photovoice's:

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Names: Mary Nguyen, Wesley Nguyen, Kimi Oshima
Location: Seattle, WA
What we did:
During our final Capstone project we researched reproductive health among young women experiencing homelessness in Seattle. With the new information gained, we reached out to multiple organizations in the Seattle area that work with our population to learn more about the topic. We ended up interviewing Katie Scheier, a Clinic Administrator for Youth Clinic & St. Vincent de Paul Clinic at NeighborCare and Dr. Sherri Zorn a physician at Polyclinic Pediatrics in Seattle. Through our interviews we were able to gain valuable insight from these professionals. With all this new found knowledge, we created a podcast script and summarized it into a podcast highlighting how stigma and COVID-19 has affected reproductive health in women experiencing homelessness.
Potential Public Health Impact:
Many young women who experience homelessness are either involved in sex work or have engaged in survival sex, which is attaining money, shelter, food, or other essential needs in exchange for sex. However, our healthcare services aren’t designed to serve this population since many providers don’t provide full comprehensive counseling on all contraceptives or are just uncomfortable with talking about sex with their patients. Creating this podcast would allow us to share gaps in our current healthcare system and think of ways on how we could improve it to better serve young women who experience homelessness. In addition, gaining perspective on the homeless population’s experiences and how stigma impacts their quality of care would allow our audience to view their stories as resilient and help change the narrative and perspective of this population when talking to their family or friends.
What We Learned from this Experience:
From this final capstone project we learned about the importance of storytelling and of collaborating with members of the community in order to accurately portray their experiences and knowledge. We also learned that public health work can take many different forms. It is not just research or changing policies, public health work includes changing minds and amplifying the voices of the community which can be done through many different mediums, including podcasts. Finally, we learned the importance of collaboration and teamwork in public health work. Not only did we communicate well with one another, but we also learned to collaborate with those who serve the homeless community.

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Washington State Historical Society (WSHS)

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Washington State Historical Society (WSHS)

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Name: Selam Kidane
Location: Seattle, WA; Vancouver, WA
What I did: Over the past 2 quarters, I have conducted 2 oral history interviews on WA residents' experiences during the pandemic; first interviewing my Mother, and then another peer in the PH major, Olivia Chillemi and I myself was interviewed. I got to hear in detail how the pandemic has impacted them over the past year, how their lives have changed, how their positionality has affected their experience, and more.
Potential Public Health Impact: Oral histories are a great way to archive the voices and firsthand experiences of those that are living in this pandemic era in real-time. It provides qualitative information on how COVID-19 has impacted people on a granular level.  Doing this work in partnership with the WSHS Museum is so valuable because this exhibit will be accessible to the general population to learn about, now and years in the future - representation in public spaces and historical records is so important, this project gives visibility to the diverse people of Washington that we were able to capture with this project. In 100+ years, public health practitioners will be able to look back at the information we have gathered on individual's pandemic experiences, and understand the nuances that the pandemic/quarantine have on people which is really important information, especially when trying to understand how it effects underserved and historically marginalized people.
What I learned:
During the time working with WSHS and conducting these oral histories, I have learned the importance of listening to people's stories. This experience  taught me that everyone has a story, and no one's voice is considered unimportant. When a platform is given to someone to share their story, and when you put in the time and dedication to center them and actively listen and let them know that their experiences are valuable it really opens up a space for learning and education. And this is such a critical theme in Public Health practice since in order to serve the population we need to be able to center the people in our work, and actively listen to their needs and experiences. I will definitely integrate this capstone experience in my day-to-day life as well as my Public Health work.

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Washington State Historical Society (WSHS)

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Washington State Historical Society (WSHS)

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Name: Vincent Doan
Location: Seattle, Washington
What I did: I conducted a virtual oral history interview over Zoom with Anush Gandra, an international student/resident who came to the United States from Hyderabad, India. As a recent graduate from the University of Washington, he was just beginning to search for employment when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Through this interview, he shared his thoughts, experiences, and emotions in confronting the COVID-19 pandemic during one of the most stressful times for an international student. He spoke about the hiring freezes that occurred within his industry of study, and how it was incredibly difficult for him to apply to jobs. Adding to this, he only had one year to find employment before being deported back to his home country. He provided a unique perspective for international students that is not typically highlighted. I also had the opportunity to conduct a virtual oral history interview with my classmate Lauren Stroemel. Within this interview, she shares her experiences as a public health student in the COVID-19 pandemic, discussing the fear of contracting COVID-19, the need to find job security during the pandemic, as well as transitioning back home from college-life. These experiences provided an inside-look into the lives of UW Public Health students during COVID-19.
Potential Public Health Impact: Prior to this capstone experience, I assumed that quantitative measures were the best method of gathering data and information about how public health issues impacted different populations in Washington state. However, through conducting oral histories, collecting artifacts, creating photovoice projects, I have learned how these methodologies can have a unique impact. Through storytelling, we can have a indepth look at the perspectives of important, invisible populations that may be uniquely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Listening to these stories provides us with an empathetic understanding of how COVID-19 has impacted the health and wellness of those around us.
What I learned: Through my oral history projects, I believe that I gave myself the opportunities to learn and grow my understanding of population health issues. Through conversing with my interviewees, I was able to understand the unique experiences and intersectionality that lead them to experience population health issues in a particular way. Oral histories provided me with the spaces to listen and experience what underrepresented minorities were experiencing, and think of ways that we could better serve these communities both inside and outside of the COVID-19 pandemic in Washington state.

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Name: Jhane' Jackson
Location: Seattle, Wa
What I Did:
I conducted an in-person oral history interview with Dr.Kathleen Saturay, a Dentist who immigrated from the Philippines. I was able to capture the the Covid-19 pandemic as she experienced it being a business owner and a dental practitioner. Being that she is my boss I was able to peel back a layer I had never got to experience. Understanding her resiliency and also how she recounts putting her staff first and staying strong for those around her. Dr.Saturay of course had her moments where her mental health was affected but she remained strong and set a great example of what it takes to be a leader. I also had the oppurtunity to conduct a second oral history interview with my classmate Saree Han. Saree was able to give insight on the experience of the pandemic as a UW student while trying to work and support herself and even catching Covid herself and dealing with that experience alone. Couple with these interviews were my photo voice entries where I talked about what I call "the forgotten" aka homeless and how I perceived their possible experience during the pandemic, my own mental health struggles, and being vaccinated.
Potential Public Health Impact:
With the oral history interviews generations to come will able to hear the authenticity of a diverse group of people's experiences during this life changing event. With this information we will hopefully be able to guide future public health advocates in their responses to similar situations. With these interviews I hope that our mistakes will be lessons and the voices heard will radiate into communities outside of our own.
What I learned:
I learned the value in creating space for individuals to tell their story. No two people are alike and each person brings a different, unique view to the table, there's so much to be learned just from listening to each other. In order to do good for the community you have to listen to the people in it. I also learned a new method of research, before this project I had never heard of an oral history.

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Location
Team:
What we did:
Potential Public Health Impact:
What we learned:

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Name: Saree Han
Location: Seattle, WA
What I Did: I conducted an oral history about Dr. Khalida Arifs' experience with COVID as a frontline health worker. She had just graduated from medical school and started her residency last year. Her experience with COVID had been tough as she lost someone very close to her and did not get any breaks from work as there was a global pandemic that took control of her life. The pandemic definitely took a mental toll on her, but she persevered! I also conducted an oral history interview with a classmate, Jhane Jackson, who is a dental assistant and she talked about how she coped with the experience of the pandemic and the precautions she took. Lastly, I chose three photos to represent my pandemic experiences, they consisted of a positive COVID test result ☹, my mom and I, and my friends surprising on my birthday while social distancing.
Potential Public Health Impact:
The impact of the oral history is to show a diverse array of voices and experiences with the pandemic for the future generation and the many years to come after that, so that all experiences are showcased and not overlooked. It can help show what we can improve on in our next Public Health crisis as well as different ways to cope during a pandemic.
What I Learned: I learned that hearing and showcasing different, unique experiences and perspectives from community members is important for visibility and representation for those underserved communities that normally go voiceless. I have learned to take these skills of community building and community outreach to my next step in my Public Health career! ☻

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Seattle Unsheltered: Navigating Youth and Adult Homelessness in regards to Accessing Governmental Services

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Seattle Unsheltered: Navigating Youth and Adult Homelessness in regards to Accessing Governmental Services

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Location: Seattle, WA
Team: Ayan Mohamed, Azim Abdul Wahid, Shahrukh Yousuf

What we did: Throughout the span of two quarters we created a podcast to raise awareness of the individuals who are experiencing homelessness in the Greater Seattle area.  We explored the relationship between the government and the people experiencing homelessness, and sought to identify and understand ways the government can more effectively provide support to houseless communities. We had the opportunity to speak to the Youth Advisory Board (YAB) at the Doorway Project (DP), a youth care led initiative focusing on addressing youth homelessness in the U District through continuous community-engaged collaboration with U District service providers and community members, as well as Lauren Fay, the Senior Business and Operations Analyst at the Downtown Emergency Service Shelter in Seattle, or DESC. Through our discussions, we were ultimately able to identify ways to improve the understanding between homeless populations and the government, and how community service providers can better collaborate as mediators in directing these services.

Potential Public Health Impact: The potential public health impact on our project is to raise awareness of the conditions of accessing governmental services as a youth and adult experiencing homelessness. Through our project we interviewed youth and community service providers so our audience has a better understanding of the state of accessing governmental services but also how to support community service providers so they can expand their services to a larger population of homeless people to improve equity. Grassroots organizations such as DESC and Doorway Project are valuable assets because of their already established community relationships. By governmental entities putting their trust and funding organizations such as DESC and Doorway Project they can better serve these communities by providing them with the resources they need. Some knowledge we want our audience to take away from this podcast is that a significant proportion of homeless youth identify as LGBTQ+ and BIPOC and that major drivers that contribute to adult homelessness are lack of affordable housing, poverty, unemployment, mental illness, and substance abuse. The role of public health professionals and our call to action for them is to support these grassroots efforts by supporting organizations like DESC and Doorway which can alleviate the burden of homelessness and advocate for more equitable access to government services.

What we learned: We learned about the role of community providers and how essential their services are for people experiencing homelessness. This podcast gave us insight of how trust and relationships are very important when serving vulnerable communities like people experiencing homelessness. Establishing trust as a public health professional is very important but also taking the time to listen and understand the community through many perspectives and lenses is very critical. This also allowed us to reevaluate our privileges and positionality when conducting our interviews. It was humbling to work along and partner with the Doorway Project in the making of this podcast, giving us the coveted opportunity of contributing to make a difference. Finally having a chance to apply what we learned in the major, we learned the importance of being flexible and the ability to adapt. Due to scheduling conflicts for interviews, we were forced to shift the focus of our podcast at the beginning of this quarter. While intimidating at first, this change actually opened new doors for us that overall helped us make a greater impact in our work.

Here is a snippet of our podcast, where both Lauren from DESC and the youth from Doorway Project highlighted important takeaways from our discussion.

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Name: Genesia Paolo
Location: Seattle, WA
What I Did: I listened to and recorded my grandmother's oral history, regarding her experience being displaced from her home, American Samoa, during the COVID-19 pandemic due to medical reasons, to share with the Washington State Historical Society for one of their museum exhibits. I also conducted another interview with one of my classmates, Maddy VanSpeybroeck, to share with WSHS and she shared so much insight and wisdom about how she has coped and grown during the pandemic. Lastly, I selected three photos to represent my own pandemic experiences, and described what all of those pictures meant through our photo voice project. My pictures were of/from a Tahitian virtual dance showcase I was recently a part of, my three year anniversary "COVID friendly" road trip, and my new pandemic puppy in the place I have spent the most time in during the pandemic, which is my safe space and sanctuary aka my bed room.
Potential Public Health Impact: The impact of these oral history interviews and photo voice projects is we will be able to learn from these pandemic experiences for years to come and be better prepared for future public health crises. We also are able to more equitably capture and share history relevant to public health using our various, unique perspectives and relationships in our local community.
What I Learned: From this capstone project, I learned how essential it is to first understand and listen to community members before we can help and support them.

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Seattle Unsheltered: Encampment Sweeps and Ideas for Needed Services

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Seattle Unsheltered: Encampment Sweeps and Ideas for Needed Services

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Location: Seattle, WA

Team Members: Jennifer Chhay, Jennifer Ongoco, Nora Oyama

What We Did: We created a 10-minute podcast featuring two Seattle unsheltered community members: Billy from Tent City 3 and Daren from the Doorway Project. Our podcast hopes to bring awareness and urgency into the growing crisis of people experiencing homelessness in the Seattle/King County area by shedding light onto the harmful practice of encampment sweeps and highlighting the shortcomings of the city's support as well as ways it could be improved. By sharing the stories and ideas of Daren and Billy, we hope to impact our listeners by challenging or expanding their thinking on encampment sweeps and those experiencing homelessness, and motivate listeners to get involved by using their voting power to advocate for our unsheltered community members.

Potential Public Health Impact: The potential public health impact of our podcast is that we inform listeners of policies, practices, and programs that

detrimentally impact the safety and wellbeing of people experiencing homelessness in the Seattle area. By doing we so, we hope to reach, impact, and

motivate first time voters (or those not very politically active) to take a stance against harmful practices, and in turn, vote and advocate for policies

to protect unhoused people from legal violence.

What We Learned:
Having the opportunity to speak with those from the unhoused community taught us the importance of engaging, communicating, and collaborating with those from the populations that we are hoping to serve. These individuals were so much more knowledgeable on the issues they face because they are members of the community. They provided insightful information on ways in which others can support and advocate for the unhoused population. As one of our interviewees (Billy) noted, they just want to be seen, heard, and involved in decisions that would impact them and the community.

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Team Members: Madison Schatz, Michael Veliyev, Chelsea Tran & Emmanuel Kaale

Location: Seattle, WA

What We Did: We created a ~10 minute podcast on community directed policy in relation to reproductive justice. The goal was to inform and educate listeners about the importance of community involvement when creating culturally competent health care policies. By discussing the importance of community directed policy and how “traditional” policy making initiatives lead to exclusive practices for minority groups, we aimed to uplift these voices that aren’t traditionally heard within the political realm.

Public Health Impact: To further the agenda of reproductive justice advocates, we need actively combat systemic racism and inequity. Surge's work centers black women, women of color, and queer and trans people of color because they are the most effected by these structural inconsistencies. By discussing how to initiate change from the ground up, we hope listeners will feel empowered to elicit change.

What We Learned: We quickly learned the importance of undoing racism while working with Surge. There is a history in this country and our healthcare industry that lends to a pattern of how people are treated. "If the root of the tree is sick, you know it really has to be dug up" - Senait Brown, Surge Policy Director

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Name: Dave Xiong
Location: Seattle, WA
What did you do?
For my work for Washington State Historical Society during the winter quarter I had conducted a oral history on my roommate David Ross. He is a recent graduate from the computer science program here at UW and has just recently started working at a new job where he had interned for the past summer. In this interview he details how he has navigated the pandemic as a student, teaching assistant, and new grad who had just started out in the work force. Throughout this interview He details his struggles with the isolation that the pandemic has put him through. For my Spring quarter capstone we had also conducted oral histories but this time we were partnered with other classmates. My oral history partner was Callie Bartlett, she details her experience of working in-person and how the pandemic had affected her work. She also gives great input of how the public health major has changed her view of the pandemic. Our last project for the our section is a photovoice project where we get to give our perspective of public health students in a pandemic.
What is the potential public health impact of this project?
I believe the public health impacts of this project is providing a voice to the victims of the pandemic. It allows the stories to be heard of those who survived through this pandemic and not let it swept under the rug as just numbers and statistics. It also allows for future generations to gain a perspective during this time and allows others to learn of what happened during this time.
What did you learn about public health practice from your final capstone project?
During my time working on my oral histories I had learned a lot of skills when it came to interviewing and listening. I foresee these skills to be helpful when I am surveying a community and community building.

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Seattle Unsheltered: Uncovering Healthcare for the Houseless Communities 

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Seattle Unsheltered: Uncovering Healthcare for the Houseless Communities 

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Team Members: Emily Gallagher, Genevieve Pritchard, Jennifer Scroggs

Location: Seattle, WA

What did you do?
We created a ten minute podcast highlighting the struggles that the unsheltered population faces when encountering health and healthcare, specifically focusing on hygiene, mental health, and stigma. We conducted two interviews, one with a young person named Jasmine from the Doorway Project’s Youth Advisory Board, and the other with Dr. Whitney Kiker, an internal medicine physician from Harborview Medical Center. These two differing viewpoints and experiences provided us with a more in depth insight into the issues that those who are unsheltered in our community face.

What is the potential public health impact of this project?

A potential public health impact of this project is to identify gaps in healthcare and to better educate providers and policymakers about the issues this population faces. Another impact could be better understanding health outcomes of this community through firsthand knowledge of real experiences of community members. Speaking with individuals on diverse sides of the issues of homelessness has the potential to create real change, as they have direct insights and cultural wealth surrounding these problems. Those who are detached from these realities often mean well when aiming to solve the challenges associated with houselessness, but without the input and perspectives of the affected community members, substantial effects are unlikely to happen.

What did you learn about public health practice from your final capstone project?

We learned how to center communities and work alongside them as opposed to working for them. We also learned we can’t effectively practice public health without directly involving the communities we aim to impact. On top of building in our knowledge of the theories and practices that influence public health in the U.S., we gained professional development skills through this final deliverable that will aid us in our futures as public health practitioners.

Below is an excerpt from our podcast, discussing topics of mental health for the houseless communities in Seattle and beyond.

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Name: Jasmin Torres
Location: Seattle, WA
What did you do?
During winter quarter, in collaboration with the Washington State Historical Society, I conducted an oral history on Muhamed Manhsour’s experience during the COVID-19 pandemic. Muhamed is an academic advisor at the UW and I wanted to learn more about the experiences of those on the other side of academia. It’s well known that college students have struggled through the pandemic but we don’t talk much about professors or other professionals. He highlighted the importance of family, youth empowerment, privilege, and religion. Muhamed suffered a great loss during the pandemic and emphasized how his religion and getting closer to his scriptures helped him through it. He also talked about the privilege he had in being able to transition to a work-from home setting and not having to deal with a layoff. During spring quarter, I had the opportunity to interview my classmate Maria Benitez. I got to know Maria a little bit more during the interview and we could relate on many levels. Maria talked about her experiences as a first-generation student while having to support herself and her family during the pandemic. She also talked about her passion for art and how she was able to spark that passion again during the pandemic. I enjoyed the discussion we had from a first-generation student to another. Finally, I was able to create my own photo voice project about my experiences during the pandemic. All of these stories will be displayed at the Washington State Historical Society sometime this year!
What is the potential public health impact of this project?
This capstone project allowed us to amplify the voices of diverse groups of people who would otherwise be forgotten. To be truly inclusive, we must highlight the experiences of those who are underrepresented. Not one pandemic experience is the same and therefore everyone’s story matters. These stories could be used to educate future generations as well as reflection and activism for those in underrepresented groups.
What did you learn about public health practice from your final capstone project?
I learned that public health practice can be applied to all aspects of life. I also learned about the importance of oral histories or storytelling, especially when they are used to educate and empower diverse voices. History or museums tend to only amplify the voices of those who are white and powerful and this project is one way to combat it. I realized the importance of amplifying the voices of immigrants by using my positionality and/or privilege.

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Name: Elizabeth Tham

Location: Bothell, WA & Seattle, WA

What did you do?
In Winter Quarter, the Washington State Historical Society gave us an opportunity to conduct an oral history with a member of the community. For my oral history, I decided to do it on my closest friend to document the life of a “normal” college student living during the COVID-19 pandemic. She majored in Molecular and Cellular Developmental Biology and is a recent graduate from the University of Washington. From her oral history, I had the privilege of hearing more about how the pandemic has affected her relationships and how she yearns to get back to doing her hobbies once the pandemic is over. From her interview, she states that she wants the future generation to know there is still hope even during a pandemic and just to continue to keep being you.

During SPH 492, I had the opportunity to conduct a second oral history, but this time it would be with a fellow classmate, Dan Nguyen. I had the opportunity to learn about the retail worker’s point of view during the pandemic and how it was not actually the “sweet life.” It was nice to have a connection with someone in the class during the pandemic, even if it was temporary. It was nice and comforting to know about how the pandemic has affected someone else other than me. Dan shared his fleeting viewpoints on the pandemic, the way country handled it, and how he has grown and changed throughout this time working retail and being away from his family. There was also another opportunity to voice our opinions on the pandemic through the photovoice projects. I felt that I had grown as a writer through this project and grown to be more accepting of my surroundings.

What is the potential public health impact of this project?

The public health impact of this project is that it acts as living archive of the pandemic in Washington State. Through the oral histories, many diverse voices get to be collected and help other people understand different strategies to coping in the pandemic. All the experiences get cumulated for future generations to understand.

What did you learn about public health practice from your final capstone project?

I learned about how diverse everyone’s life course perspective can be. I came to understand the vast diversity our community and how important it is it might be to listen to the communities you will be working with as a public health practitioner. Because everyone is so different, learning to listen and adapting to the differences would better help in global health implementation and such. The interview process taught me a lot about having good writing skills, planning, working on a schedule, and utilizing my skills to produce quality work for a public health cause.

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Seattle Unsheltered: The Foster Care System’s Effect on Homelessness

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Seattle Unsheltered: The Foster Care System’s Effect on Homelessness

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Team Members: Gianna Bartlewski, Linda Ramirez & Rhian Saunders

Location: Seattle/King County, WA

What did we do? Together, we created a podcast highlighting the influence that the foster care system has on homelessness. Specifically, it was our goal to amplify the voices of youth in the unsheltered community who have experienced life within the foster care system. With the help of the Doorway Project and UW Champions, we received the opportunity to interview youth who have aged out of the foster care system and are now facing, or once have faced housing insecurity. Their stories directly highlight important service gaps and other institutional barriers that perpetuate youth homelessness.

What is the potential public health impact?: Our goal was to amplify the voices of  youth within the unsheltered community in order to educate the public on the economic and social barriers influenced by the foster care system that perpetuate homelessness. We hope that highlighting disparities in the system will not only educate the public, but also help to break the stigma surrounding the unsheltered community. Our podcast aims to shed light on how homelessness is a public health issue, and garner support to influence change on a systemic level within the foster care system.

What did you learn about public health practice from your final capstone project?: Our final capstone project taught us about the multidimensionality of public health practice. Specifically, we learned how public health work takes place on both personal and systemic scales. We learned this directly by making connections with individuals in a community through conducting interviews and community outreach, while also advocating for large scale effects, such as highlighting the need for implementing programs to influence systemic change within the foster care system. There is no aspect of public health that is more important than the other, but instead, recognizing the value that each level of public health work has will allow us to continue to foster a safe, equitable environment.

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Bloodworks Northwest: Blood Donation within Homeless Group Population

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Bloodworks Northwest: Blood Donation within Homeless Group Population

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Team: Tracy Wei, Awa Diallo, Kimberly Meraz, and Angela Pak
Location: Seattle, WA
What did our team do?
In spring 2021, our team created a series of flyers for the Bloodworks NW virtual blood drive. Our target community was the homeless population and we aimed to recruit them as blood donors from 4 different shelters in Seattle: 1) ROOTS Young Adult Shelter;  2) Seattle Homeless Outreach; 3) Mary’s place; 4) Salvation Army. We created 4 different flyers with different blood drive locations depending on the homeless shelter. We encouraged each shelter to share our flyer at their center to spread the word through any means of distribution. Our main outreach message emphasized on the fact that donors will be compensated with complimentary refreshments and a free physical for their time. We particularly aimed to dispel the negative stereotypes associated with the blood quality of the homeless population and to reduce the medical stigma overall. We used our flyer as an outreach email to shelters to promote the need for blood donation and encourage everyone to become a hero by saving lives through blood donation. Specifically focusing on the location of the blood drive was our way of reducing transportation and accessibility limitations that the homeless community face. Overall our outreach message and flyer were targeted and intentional which made it easier to determine our goals and target.

What was the potential public health impact of this project?
Our deliverable has the potential to get the homeless population to donate blood and allow them to participate as members of society. We created specialized outreach to the homeless population with efforts to dispel the negative stereotypes of the quality of blood of the homeless population. Outreach material was designed using public health theories and frameworks emphasizing equity. Our project can bring awareness to this population’s needs and the community’s strengths.
What did you learn about public health practice from your final capstone project?
We learned that there is a great importance in reaching out to minority groups to increase diversity in blood donations. We learned to equip an equity lens that allowed us to intentionally cater towards the different populations and circumstances. Our group researched the homeless population in particular, which is often an overlooked and marginalized crowd in healthcare. Through our findings, we recognized the existing barriers and medical stigma that surrounded our populations, and sought to break down such fears of donating blood. It is important to be inclusive of all people, voices, and identities as we emphasize the equal value that each person’s blood donation holds in the mission of saving lives. While creating flyers and implementing our outreach strategies, we also learned to be mindful of our focus group through increasing awareness and accessibility to informational resources or nearby locations, and adopting a compassionate and empathetic approach.

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Vulnerable Populations Strategic Initiative (VPSI) 

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Vulnerable Populations Strategic Initiative (VPSI) 

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Seattle Unsheltered: Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on houselessness in Seattle

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Seattle Unsheltered: Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on houselessness in Seattle

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Team: Alani Safford, Caitlin Drover, and Chloe Miwa
Location: Seattle, WA
What did you do?

We created a podcast for Seattle Unsheltered with the topic of COVID-19. More specifically, we examined the impact of COVID-19 on the experience of houselessness in Seattle. We interviewed Lauren Fay from DESC and Afomia interviewed Willow, a young person from Doorway Project’s Youth Advisory Board, for us. This allowed us to get perspectives from both service providers and someone who utilizes those services. It was extremely informative and eye opening to hear from someone with lived experience, as the two interviews were quite different. Willow’s quotes were very impactful and insightful.

What is the potential public health impact of this project?

The goal of our podcast episode is to uplift the voices of individuals experiencing houselessness and telling their stories. We featured DESC on our podcast episode to provide other shelter services with a model of how they can better serve their guests during the pandemic and give them ideas on how to address their needs. Hearing Willow’s lived experience helps to demonstrate the challenges that COVID-19 has created as well as next steps and how to potentially address those gaps. Ultimately, we hope the impact of our episode will serve to increase awareness and inform the community of what they can do to make the community a better place.

What did you learn about public health practice from your final capstone project?

One of the most important lessons that we learned was how to engage in conversations with people who have different positionalities and experiences from us. COVID-19 disproportionately impacted the houseless community, and we were incredibly grateful to hear from the perspective of someone who serves those experiencing houselessness and the story of an individual experiencing houselessness during these difficult times. By providing people with the space to share their thoughts and actively listening to their narratives, we gained new perspectives on houselessness. Each of us believes that we developed new skills for the public health field and learned how we can become public health practitioners capable of serving the houseless community from a lens of social justice.

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Name: Olga Zhosyan
Location: Renton, WA and Seattle, WA
What did you do?
During the first capstone series in Winter 2021, I interviewed my mother about her COVID-19 experience. I had the pleasure of working with WSHS to help capture underrepresented voices during the Pandemic. My mother moved to the States from Russia in 2005. She did not know any English and raised two kids on her own in a foreign country. I conducted an oral history in Russian via Zoom to hear what it has been like for her to navigate jobs, relationships and various aspects of life during these uncertain times.
During SPH 492,
I conducted a second oral history but this time with Anika Parker, a fellow classmate. It was quite different than interviewing my mother in Russian but I loved getting to know Anika better. We have never met in person even though we are in the same major, and it was nice to hear how another student handled remote learning during a Pandemic. Anika shared her experience moving back home, navigating remote learning, the importance of intentionality and tentative plans after graduation.
What is the potential public health impact of this project?
The potential public health impact of the oral histories is archiving human experiences during a Pandemic. With the help of WSHS  Museum Exhibition , we will be able to showcase diverse voices and capture a moment in history for generations to look back on. The oral histories are a way to hear and see how based on peoples life course perspective, where they live and come from impacted their experiences during the Pandemic.
What did you learn about public health practice from your final capstone project?
I learned that advocating for equity and bringing attention to inequalities faced by immigrants, students, people working  multiple part time jobs, unemployment, housing and other upstream determinants of health is not easy. The interview process taught me a lot about planning, managing a timeline ,transcribing, editing and magnifying someone else's voice to share with the world. I gained tangible skills form my capstone project to better reflect my public health lens in a way that applies to the world outside of academia.

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Name: Angel Cheung
Location: Seattle
What did you do?
In Winter Quarter, I had the opportunity to conduct an oral history with a member of the community who was experiencing homelessness to learn about and record his experiences during the pandemic. He was living in Tent City 3 which was a tent city set up in the UW W35 parking lot. I was able to go to the tent city in-person, meet him, and conduct the interview, recording it on my phone. This quarter, I was able to conduct another oral history with one of my peers in the class, Nicole Briggs. This interview was conducted over Zoom and I got to learn and transcribe how COVID-19 impacted Nicole, the relationships with those in her life, and her mental health. Along with this, I found three photos (either before or during the pandemic) and wrote narrative captions about the photo and the relevance to public health.
What is the potential public health impact of this project?
The oral histories and photovoices will all be displayed in an exhibit at the Washington State Historical Society (WSHS) Museum in August (yay!). They will also be kept and maintained in the historical record of Washington state. The firsthand stories of individuals living through the pandemic and their voices has the ability to inform our communities and future generations about health inequities or struggles that we have faced during this time. This project has been centered around giving a voice to underrepresented populations, especially regarding the inclusion of diverse perspectives in history.
What did you learn about public health practice from your final capstone project?
I learned about different qualitative methods of public health practice such as oral histories and photovoices. Before this project, I didn't know of these methods and now, I feel more comfortable in both. Not only this, but I learned the importance of active listening and creating a space where individuals can feel safe and able to expand about experiences that might be difficult to speak about. When I heard that we would have to be interviewed this quarter/we had to identify photos from our own lives for the historical collection, my initial reaction was that I had no meaningful or exciting stories. However, I learned that everyone has stories that can inform public health practice and health inequities. The thing that we have to practice is drawing out the "so what" behind the story.
Media: Here's one of the photovoices I chose to do this quarter.

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Seattle Unsheltered Podcast: Housing First and Ideal Service Provision 

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Seattle Unsheltered Podcast: Housing First and Ideal Service Provision 

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Team

Chloe Lee, Joshua Dizon, Misa Takami, Dietrich Valdez

What did you do?

We made a podcast on Housing First and Ideal Service Provision. In this podcast, we  interviewed Helene from EGH and Lauren from DESC to get their insights on current housing gaps and their thoughts on statewide services.

What is the potential public health impact of this project?

The creation of our podcast serves to raise awareness of the barriers faced by individuals experiencing homelessness when transitioning into housing. By listening to our conversations with Lauren and Helene, public health practitioners can gain insight into the needs of homeless individuals and understand the need for compassionate community engagement.

What did you learn about public health practice from your final capstone project?

We learned that it is important to stay compassionate as we look at the statistics of homelessness and hold onto our values of helping others in need. As we learned more about the current service gaps and the reality of being homeless, it highlighted the importance of community partnerships.

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Vulnerable Populations Strategic Initiative: Community Health Outreach

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Vulnerable Populations Strategic Initiative: Community Health Outreach

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Team: Karen Ruby Garcia

Location: Greater Seattle Area

What did you do? VPSI is a program designed to promote health education among senior residents in the King County and greater Seattle area. More specifically, it aims to inform residents about stroke symptoms and encourages them to continue to reach out to 911 during medical emergencies in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. My work consisted of mailing informational letters to King County residents and following up with a call, in order to see if they received the message regarding stroke detection and to further inform them about the precautions EMS is taking during the pandemic. In the spring, my next step was consisted of conducting survey evaluations from the community. I reached out to over 40 residents and gained insights into the positive and negative experiences they faced when reaching out to EMS. Following each call, I imported the feedback I received onto a spreadsheet. My goal was to gain as much feedback as possible in order to give VPSI  organizers valuable information that can help them better improve the 911 interface.

What is the potential public health impact of this project?
This program has the potential to inform residents on how to detect stroke symptoms as well as encourage hesitant and/or uninformed residents to reach out to 911 during medical emergencies. In doing so, we can decrease the number of untreated strokes in the King County area, where it is likely to affect 1 in 10 adults over the age of 65. Untreated strokes are life-threatening and this project has the potential to save lives.

What did you learn about public health practice from your final capstone project?
From this experience I learned the importance of engaging with the community and actively listening to their needs. Some people shared very positive experiences with EMS and others shared frustration. I found that while I couldn't directly change their experiences with EMS, my role as a PH educator was important in addressing safety concerns from the community. Additionally, I found that my role enabled me to really bring these concerns up to those of higher power, in my case, capstone site leaders.

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Vulnerable Populations Strategic Initiative (VPSI) Phone Outreach

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Vulnerable Populations Strategic Initiative (VPSI) Phone Outreach

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Location: Seattle/King County

What did you do?
Our work with VPSI consisted of mailing letters and making phone calls to senior residents to provide them with stroke awareness and education. The education during winter quarter consisted of mailing letters that contained essential information about the FAST acronym for detecting stroke symptoms, and calling individuals weekly and provide further education about the COVID-19 impact on emergency calls and strokes. For spring quarter we began with evaluation, calling people to survey them on stroke education and their perception of EMS, trying to evaluate the effectiveness of the previous phone outreach. For both quarters we were responsible for keeping track of the phone calls we made and the various feedback/comments that the residents provided us if applicable.

What is the potential public health impact of this project?
With this phone outreach, senior residents will hopefully have a better understanding of stroke and the importance of EMS. As our work targets vulnerable elderly populations, we are targeting populations that may have a hard time getting this important life-saving information.

What did you learn about public health practice from your final capstone project?
As I called a multitude of people throughout the few months that I worked with VPSI, I learned a lot about learned how to evaluate my role in within program, and especially how to assess my role when working with a community that I am not actively in. When hearing all these different stories and actively listening, I was able to learn how to better empathize and reflect on my own role and identity. I also learned how public health practice is constantly changing and how quickly it adapts to different environments.

Media:

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For better or for worse?: How COVID-19 changed Seattle homeless shelters (Seattle Unsheltered)

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For better or for worse?: How COVID-19 changed Seattle homeless shelters (Seattle Unsheltered)

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Location: Seattle, WA

Team Members: Megan Sorn, Fiona Foster and Gillian Dioguardi

What did you do?: Over the past two quarters, we heard from multiple organizations who run shelters for people experiencing homelessness. Through these conversations, we decided to explore how Seattle shelters adapted to the pandemic and whether any of said adjustments would stick around. We interviewed Lauren Fay from the Downtown Emergency Services Center (DESC) and Helene McOwen from the Elizabeth Gregory Home (EGH). Through these interviews, we learned a lot about DESC’s emergency transition to the Red Lion Hotel and the COVID-19 protocols put in place at EGH. It became clear that by giving residents of shelters more private spaces, many individuals experiencing homelessness were able to thrive, experiencing more humanity with new protocols. We learned about the impact that communities have on the experience of those experiencing homelessness and the importance of being a “good neighbor.”

What is the Public Health impact of this project?: We hope that through this Podcast, policymakers, community members, and those involved in shelter leadership will recognize the importance of treating those experiencing homelessness with humanity. This reminder can help those experiencing homelessness to receive the support they need to exit homelessness or other conditions that they may be looking to improve. By emphasizing both mental and physical wellness in shelters, as the pandemic adjustments often did, we think an impact can be made on this population. Eventually, this could allow for the treatment of root causes of homelessness as well, rather than simply sheltering individuals.

What did you learn about Public Health practice from the project?: We learned that lived experiences are just as important as facts and statistics. We also see how important creative solutions are when it comes to complicated problems. The creative idea to use a hotel as a shelter when social distancing protocols altered the ability for the normal space of DESC to be used helped prevent many cases of COVID and helped those experiencing homelessness to get out of “emergency survival mode” as stated by Lauren Fay. Finally, we learned how important it is for community organizations to work together, especially in a pandemic.

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Reproductive Justice Podcast: Immigrant Health

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Reproductive Justice Podcast: Immigrant Health

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Who was on the team?

Cameron McElmurry, Carolyn Duong, Kevin Tatunay, Larissa Merlo, and Shean Juta

What did we do?

In constructing our podcast, we formulated questions we would use in our interviews with Surge and gather necessary information from Surge and their perspective on immigrant health in the US. After the interviews, we constructed the our podcast script while also researching more information on immigrant health to include in our podcast.

What is the potential public health impact of this project?

Our group’s podcast looks to bring awareness to health barriers that immigrants may face while living in the US. The lack of resources available for them to seek healthcare is one of the many detriments that contribute to poor quality of life. Working with Surge has inspired us to research and learn about these issues and addressing them. In addition, we talk about organizations that are available for the immigrant population such as Casa de La Raza and Casa Latina. Overall, we focus on bringing awareness to these issues while highlighting resources that can help those who need them.

What did you learn about public health practice from your final capstone?

One of the main takeaways we learned from capstone was the importance of Reproductive Justice, especially for women, young adults, and children. In obtaining research for this project, our group learned a lot about immigrant life in the US and the many barriers that they can face while moving and/or living in a foreign country. In facing those barriers, there are many resources and organizations that specialize in helping those within the immigrant community in the Seattle area such as Sea-Mar, a medical facility that specializes in providing healthcare to low-income and Latino families. Constructing and organizing all of this information has also allowed me to gain experience in the work that goes into building a podcast and other forms of media to help raise awareness of these issues.

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Name: Dan Nguyen

Location: Seattle, WA

What did I do?
Winter Quarter: I conducted an oral interview with my boss on his lived experiences through the COVID-19 pandemic. Being an executive manager at a large store, he talked about his role as an “essential worker” and the toll it took on him. He highlighted his best moment during the pandemic of proposing to his partner and moving in together into their own place.

Spring Quarter: I conducted another interview with a classmate, Elizabeth T. She discussed her transition to online schooling and her family’s attitudes regarding COVID-19 and how they clashed with public health background. In addition, I created 3 personal photovoices reflecting my perspective and own experiences of the pandemic as a student in public health.

What is the potential public health impact of this project?One of the main purposes of the oral history is to provide a platform for those who traditionally would not have the ability to share their lived experiences through a major event. The pandemic has affected all spectrums of life, especially the underrepresented. Allowing for those voices to be heard not only would provide a more complete understanding of the pandemic, but also allow for opportunities for the future to learn about their experiences and learn from them.

What did you learn about public health practice from your final capstone project?
When you ask someone to tell a story about themselves, more often times than not, they will be delighted to do so. One of the core components of public health is to seek justice for those who do not have the privilege to voice themselves whenever they want to. Being able to listen to the people I have interviewed and those others by my peers, there is such a breadth of perspectives that are capable of creating many dialogues to improve health in the future, not just in a pandemic setting, but on a broader societal scale.

Media: This is an audio snippet of my interview with my boss, Glibert, who discusses his role in the pandemic.

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Seattle Unsheltered: Policies Surrounding the Seattle Unsheltered Community

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Seattle Unsheltered: Policies Surrounding the Seattle Unsheltered Community

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Location: Seattle/King County

Team Members: Johnica Castro, Veneece Hotchkiss, and Sonia Osorio

What did we do?
We created a podcast that discusses how policies, leadership and sense of community impact the policies surrounding the Seattle unsheltered community. We learned about this topic by interviewing Adrienne Quinn, a Professor at the Evans school of public policy and governance and a board member for the Regional Homelessness Authority. We also had the opportunity to interview a young person.

Potential public health impact of this project?
We wanted our podcast to be educational and give the listener an idea of the different aspects that impact the unsheltered community. We layed out our podcast to go over the root cases, budgeting, and sense of community to give listeners a comprehensive understanding of how policies impact the unsheltered.

What did you learn about public health practice from your final project?We learned how to host an interview. We also learned how to create a podcast. But one of the biggest takeaways is learning about the unsheltered community and the various resources that are available in the University District. We also learned how much knowledge the youth has and how it can be used in so many different ways to create changes within the systems.

Media:
We have attached a clip of our conclusion/call to action from our podcast that summarizes the topics we focused on.

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Location: Seattle & King County

Team member: Chris Bruns

What did I do?
VPSI, which stands for Vulnerable Populations Strategic Initiative, is a community-based health outreach program that aims to provide ongoing stroke and heart attack prevention education for the elderly residents of Seattle and surrounding King County. This program was conducted through a partnership between UW School of Public Health and Emergency Medical Services Division, Seattle & King County. Starting in 491, we started our outreach by mailing out letters and conducting over-the-phone education. During these phone calls, we educated residents about the importance of utilizing EMS, even during COVID-19, and about the severity of stroke and how to recognize potential signs and symptoms of a stroke; the letters we mailed out contained similar information. This quarter, in 492, we continued our outreach, this time by performing over-the-phone evaluation surveys for residents we had reached in the previous quarter. The objective of these evaluation surveys was to analyze how effective our original outreach was and residents' perceptions on 9-1-1, stroke, and so on.

What is the potential public health impact of this project?
The public health impact of this project could literally be life saving. Our hope is that the residents that we reached out to will have a better understanding of stroke and how to identify symptoms; we also hope that people understand the importance of calling 9-1-1 during emergency situations, even during the COVID-19 pandemic. While it may seem scary, EMS personnel are prepared to address critical health needs and provide people with the fastest route to the hospital. Furthermore, our project specifically targets a portion of the elderly and vulnerable populations of King County, providing them with reassurance and important public health information.

What did I learn about public health practice from my final capstone project?
This final capstone project taught me how to perform community-based health outreach. After learning about this form of public health work in my other SPH classes, I was finally able to put what I had learned into practice. My experiences of interacting with a variety of different people also allowed me to practice cultural humility, anti-racism praxis, and so on. I also learned about the importance of reaching out to older and more vulnerable populations, providing them with important health information. Finally, I learned about stroke, signs and symptoms of stroke, and how COVID-19 has greatly impacted people’s actions and likelihood of utilizing EMS, even during an emergency.

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Seattle Unsheltered: Preventive Services for the Unsheltered

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Seattle Unsheltered: Preventive Services for the Unsheltered

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Location: Seattle/King County

Team Members: Emily Moriarty, Stephanie Reyes, & Daniella Rodriguez

What did you do?
During Winter quarter our team selected a topic related to COVID-19 and homelessness to help explore and bring attention to a public health issue. The topic we chose was Preventive Services for the Unsheltered. We then created a blueprint template and a storyboard that covered our main topics as well a guide for our interviews. During Spring quarter, we reached out and contacted our interviewees. Our team interviewed Emily Gibson a registered nurse in the emergency department at the Northwest Hospital and Helene McOwen the day center coordinator at the Elizabeth Gregory Home. After conducting our interviews, we created our script and put together our 10 minute podcast.

What is the potential public health impact of this project?
Potential public health impacts of this project are to help educate and raise awareness about the barriers that the unsheltered community faces as well as bringing attention to the stigmas and biases that people may hold. With this project, our team hopes to push for structural change such as providing a centralized location for comprehensive care. Another impact is that we hope to encourage practitioners to advocate for changes and hope that clinicians and public health practitioners can be more emphatic in their work and towards their patients.

What did you learn about public health practice from your final capstone project?
Our team learned that public health is such a challenging field that still has a lot of discrimination and prejudices that we all need to work on to counteract. We learned that this is an ongoing process with all kinds of complexities and intersections.

Media: Below we have included a clip from Emily Gibson where she describes one of her experiences in the emergency department.

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Emily Moriarty, Stephanie Reyes, Daniella Rodriguez

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Emily Moriarty, Stephanie Reyes, Daniella Rodriguez

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Location: Seattle/King County

Team Members: Caylynn Berosik

What did you do?: Throughout Winter and Spring quarter we conducted public health outreach to residents 65 years and older across King County regarding stroke, 911 calling, and the Emergency Medical Service system. We received a list of residents and were assigned people we were to contact throughout the quarter. We started by sending two separate letters to the residents; one as a control with all the information on a sheet of paper and one which was the focus of the study where we were to follow up later with a phone call. Phone calls were to happen three times or until the recipient picked up where further education ensued. During Spring quarter we also conducted evaluation on outreach conducted previous quarters where we asked questions about  the efficacy of the project.

What is the potential public health impact of this project?: The focus of this outreach was to provide outreach regarding stroke and how to efficiently utilize Seattle/King County EMS to vulnerable populations. This is especially crucial information for this population to receive during a pandemic where there are some reservations about utilizing resources in fear of either coming in contact with the virus or putting a burden on the medical system.

What did you learn about public health practice from your final capstone project?: Through this capstone project I learned that even though we cannot meet in person, outreach can still be done virtually and in an efficient manner. It is even possible to reach an even wider range of people through mailing and phone calls. I also learned valuable information about the FAST examination and how Seattle/King County EMS operates.

Media:

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Location: Seattle / King County
Team Member: Kelly Lam
What did you do?
Last quarter we did community health outreach to local older residents about stroke education and the importance of continuing to call 9-1-1 during COVID-19. We started by sending letters announcing our phone calls that also contained some information about stroke. We then followed up by calling the residents. This quarter we performed evaluation phone calls to residents who had been called in the past to gauge their responses to a series of questions in relation to the past call.
Public health impact:
One potential impact is that more people will be aware of the signs of stroke and will be more likely to call 9-1-1. Overall the hope is to improve the number of 9-1-1 calls occurring as they have dropped during the pandemic, likely due to fear of contracting COVID-19.
What did you learn?
During this capstone project I learned about the importance of outreach to vulnerable populations in our communities. In our case, we were contacting older residents in King County who may be subject to ageism in their daily lives. This outreach showed how important it is to create meaningful and diverse community relationships as we directly engage with members of the community. It also gave me the opportunity to practice health communication.
Media:
evaluation survey spreadsheet

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Name: Rina Yan

Location: Greater Seattle Area

What is the potential public health impact of this project?

Our class partnered with the Vulnerable Populations Strategic Initiative (VPSI),  and our project's goal was to see if education via phone calls could improve emergency medical services (EMS) usage and stroke symptom knowledge in older adults living in King County. If it turns out that our phone calls were more effective than letters at improving knowledge, this could be used as a method in the future for improving access to emergency stroke treatment for older adults in King County.

What did you do?

Our project consisted of weekly work mailing letters and making phone calls.

In winter quarter, we mainly focused on education. Each week, I would mail 10 letters that underscored the importance of continuing to call 911 and explained the FAST (face, arms, speech, time) acronym for detecting stroke symptoms. During the week, I would attempt to call 5 of the individuals I mailed letters to, and if they picked up (I would try at max, 3 times and leave voicemails the first 2 times), I would share more in-depth info about how 911 calls have decreased during the COVID-19 pandemic, the severity of untreated stroke health impacts, and the FAST exam.

This spring quarter, we started with outreach but eventually moved to the evaluation portion of our project. For evaluation, I've been calling 10 individuals (I would try at max, 3 times for each person) per week to survey them on their level of comfort calling 911, perception of stroke, if they recalled the FAST exam, their general perception of emergency medical services, etc.

What did you learn about public health practice from your final capstone project?

I have 2 main takeaways: my identity impacted how likely people were to listen and experiences of the people I called varied widely.

First, I noticed that if I mentioned I was a UW student, the tone of call would immediately change -- many people became excited and asked about my studies or future career, told me I was doing "good work," or shared how much they liked UW. Here, my identity as a UW student helped me appear in a more positive light to the people I called. In considering general outreach work, I'd guess that regardless of how important/relevant the information is, one's ability to relate to people may be one of the most important factors for good response rates.

Second, I found that people had diverse experiences; some would enthusiastically share their appreciation for EMS, some didn't have much to say, and some would angrily share their disappointment in the system. Most of the responses were positive or neutral, but the strong emotions in a few reminded me of the importance of listening to all experiences, not just the average or majority.

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Location: Seattle WA and surrounding cities
Team Members: Annie Rudge, Sarah Kravtsev, Bianca Bonsol, Lauren Lee, and Cammie Lam
What did you do?
Our group, in collaboration with Surge Reproductive Justice, created a 10 minute podcast to inform the public on the importance of Perinatal care, Black doulas, and the current health inequalities within reproductive healthcare. This podcast consisted of key informant interviews from two wonderful doulas, information on the history of doulas and statistics on reproductive justice, and takeaways from our podcast.
What is the potential public health impact of this project?
We hope that this informational podcast will engage others in this work and be a step towards improving birth outcomes and creating more accessible doula services for Black birthing people. Specifically, we hope that this educational podcast will motivate more inclusive and representative research of all birthing outcomes. Second, we hope that doula certification is eliminated and that health insurance companies and the federal government increase accessibility to doula services by expanding health coverage.
What did you learn about public health practice from your final capstone project?
My biggest takeaway from our capstone project is the importance of representation and advocacy work within public health practice. An element of public health is working through this social equity lense that we’ve been reflecting on all quarter, in order to best help those communities that are underrepresented and are not getting the help and resources necessary. Through working with Surge, we were able to see how reproductive justice, like most health issues, is an issue for all. In order to succeed and push those in power to better allocate resources and attend to the needs of the community, we must stand in solidarity and as advocates, because we are stronger in numbers.

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Location: Seattle WA
Wade Washington

What did you do?

In the VPSI capstone project, we carried out phone call and mail outreach to older people living in king county. We provided education about using 911 for EMS when experiencing a heart attack or stroke.

What is the potential public health impact of this project?

The potential impact of this project is that the community feels more comfortable and confident in using EMS, which will decrease avoidable fatalities from stroke or heart attacks.

What did you learn about public health practice from your final capstone project?

This project gave me an introduction to public health community outreach, which is a very fundamental and established method of delivering public health information. Throughout the quarter, I also learned how public health practices through outreach can change, to become more effective and efficient at reaching the target audience.

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Location: Seattle/King County, WA
Team Members: Anjali Rajah (individual)

- Abstract -
What did you do?
The VPSI capstone project consisted of many individuals performing outreach to older residents in King County. The  outreach involved education about calling 911 for emergency medical services (EMS) for stroke care. Our project aims to close the gap in decreased 911 medical calls in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. After mailing informational letters to both a "control" group and an "experimental group", each student called residents from the "experimental call list" to introduce stroke awareness, 911 protocols, and procedures for detecting a stroke (e.g. the FAST exam). Once all residents were called 3 times, we transitioned to the evaluation phase to conduct surveys about perceived agreeableness to a range of statements regarding EMS and health.

Potential Public Health Impact:
The work done at VPSI potentially has the impact to increase residents' stroke awareness and confidence in reaching out to emergency medical services (EMS) via 911. This may decrease the likelihood of stroke severity and poor health outcomes due to 911/EMS hesitancy, while empowering the older resident community to take control of their health. This program will further allow the older resident community and their families/friends to detect the signs of a stroke earlier to allow for faster health interventions.

What did you learn about public health practice from your final capstone project?
Through this capstone project, I learned how to critically evaluate my role in a larger program, when working with a community I may not directly share common ground with. I spoke to people who had a variety of experiences with 911 and EMS, which further informed my perspective on why certain groups/individuals may feel hesitant to reach out to health professionals via an enforcement agency. By using principles of active listening, validation, and constant reflection on my positionality, I was able to learn how to better empathize with the residents we called, while better conceptualizing the greater structural inequities leading to the disparity in thought and healthcare across cultures, age groups, etc. Lastly, I was able to learn how much older residents appreciate being listened and reached out to. They are often victim to disengagement from society, but this is due to the constantly advancing society and lack of communication across generations to keep this community integrated. Through this program, we are able to begin closing this gap.

Media:

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Location: Seattle WA and King County
Team Member: Benze Deraco
What did you do?
We were tasked for the past two quarters to conduct community outreach on King County residents about education during emergency situations. Specifically, we were trained to mail educational resources and conduct phone call outreach about 911, EMS services, and Stroke education, while during the COVID-19 pandemic. In another part, we conducted phone-surveys to evaluate the effectiveness of the outreach program.
What is the potential public health impact of this project?
The the potential of this project is its utilization of partnerships and stakeholders involved. This experience has allowed for students to be able to take part in addressing a prominent issue that continues to affect King County Residents. This project has its limitations, but through its information surveillance, future implementations can be constructed more effectively and more "hands-on" initiatives can be conducted to target populations that are in most need.
What did you learn about public health practice from your final capstone project?

Through my experience with VPSI, I have learned how challenging public health practice can be. Months of planning and training cannot always address any issues or problems that come up during a public health programs implementations. However, that is why public health actions must take a collective approach. Being able to work with peers with different perspectives and backgrounds, united under the same cause, leads to better results. I believe constant reflection and adjustments are just as important as planning :).

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Location: Seattle, WA
Member: Shirley Qian
What did you do? We conducted weekly phone call outreach to the Seattle King County residents. Through calling residents on phone, we performed health education regarding stroke and emergency medical services (EMS) during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, we mailed letters with important health information to residents every week.
Public Health Impact? The potential public health impact of our project is to increase community knowledge about stroke and promote EMS utilization at times of medical emergencies during the pandemic.
What did you learn? Through participation in this project, we acquired valuable skills for community outreach and gained essential knowledge about stroke prevention and EMS.
Photo:

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Location: King County WA
Team Member: Kelyn Looney
What I did: Throughout the last two quarters, we conducted community health outreach with VPSI to improve EMS access for vulnerable populations. my work with VPSI consisted of mailing letters each week to two groups of King County residents, a control group and a second group which would be followed up with phone calls. In these phone calls, I provided education including information about calling 911 during the pandemic, how to identify a stroke using the F.A.S.T. exam, and the importance of calling 911 for a life-threatening medical emergency such as a stroke. In the second half of the project, we began the evaluation phase in which we followed up with residents via phone survey to evaluate the effectiveness of each outreach method and identify any concerns or reservations respondents might have about calling 911.
Public Health impact: The community health outreach we conducted with VPSI will have the impact increasing the ability of King County residents to recognize stroke symptoms and the importance of calling 911 immediately when they see these symptoms to receive medical attention as quickly as possible and avoid complications due to delayed care. This has the potential to reduce health disparities due to stroke among vulnerable populations.
What I learned: Through my work with VPSI, I learned first-hand about performing community outreach and gained valuable experience interacting with community members. Conducting phone outreach was more challenging than I had anticipated as it required me to navigate emotionally sensitive situations such as the respondent having a loved one recently pass away due to a stroke. The outreach calls were an opportunity to practice patience and understanding and not getting discouraged when people don’t want to participate or are even rude about it. While it was challenging at times, the work was also very rewarding as many people I spoke with expressed gratitude for what we were doing and seemed to appreciate having their voices heard in the evaluation survey.

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Location: Seattle, WA
Team members: Jodie Germino
What did you do?
Throughout these past two quarters, I had the opportunity to perform educational outreach calls as well as post-outreach evaluation calls to elderly King County residents. During the educational outreach calls, I had the chance to talk to residents about their thoughts on making 911 calls during the pandemic and their knowledge on stroke symptoms. Following our conversation, I had the chance to share some educational material with them, such as statistics with EMS utilization as well as stroke symptom awareness.

What is the potential public health impact of this project?
This project has a great potential public health impact, as it allowed us students to directly engage with a population that is often neglected in regards to mode of education. By talking with residents directly, we were able to answer any questions they had while also presenting important information to them that could help save them or their loved ones from complications relating to medical emergencies.

What did you learn about public health practice from your final capstone project?
I learned that public health practice is constantly in motion. With the rapidly changing environment today, this project allowed me to adapt to the changing circumstances while also providing key information that can help others in regards to public health.

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Location: Seattle, WA
Team Members: Jamie Forschmiedt

Abstract
What we did: Throughout winter and spring quarters, we conducted health outreach to older adults in the King County area. We began by mailing letters and conducting phone outreach to provide information about utilizing Emergency Medical Services during the Covid-19 pandemic and recognizing the symptoms of stroke. In the spring, we transitioned to conducting phone evaluation surveys for the program.

Public health impact: The intention of this program is to improve the interface between vulnerable populations and EMS in King County. With our phone outreach, we answered questions that residents had about 9-1-1 and stroke. Since calls to 9-1-1 for stroke have dropped during the pandemic, this program could have the potential impact of increasing the number of people who call 9-1-1 for medical emergencies.

What did you learn? This project helped me gain a lot of experience in interacting with diverse populations and communicating public health concepts. I also learned a great deal about the thoughts and concerns that people have about EMS and the healthcare system, and how to navigate intense conversations about sensitive topics.

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Location: Seattle, WA

Team Members: Simran Randhawa (self)

What did you do? Throughout the Winter and Spring Quarters we performed outreach with elderly residents of King County, informing them about stroke and emergency medical services. During our outreach we mailed educational letters to residents, made educational phone calls, and conducted post-outreach evaluations. We also participated in the University of Washington's COVID-19 Navigator pilot course in order to expand our knowledge about the current pandemic.

What is the potential public health impact?
Elderly residents will be better equipped to recognize the symptoms of stroke by following the FAST signs, while, also being better informed on the best ways to contact emergency medical services should they or someone they know begin to have a stroke. Hopefully, we should see a decrease in negative health outcomes associated with stroke and EMS transport.

What did you learn about Public health practice from your final capstone project?
I learned about how the various different ways public health outreach is performed and how to approach residents from a variety of backgrounds. Prior to this experience, I had not considered how impactful virtual public health outreach could be, however, after communicating with residents following our initial outreach- it was clear that we were having a genuine impact. Our capstone project also required us to interact with residents from a variety of backgrounds, forcing us to implement many of the skills and frameworks we have learned throughout this course and various other SPH classes.

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Olivia Chillemi
Location: Seattle, WA
What did you do?
Winter Quarter, I conducted an interview with a close mentor of mine about her experience with the pandemic. She talked about her experience living with a severely immunocompromised husband and her time making masks, among many other topics. Spring Quarter, I conducted an interview of a classmate, Selam, who documented her experience living with family, the cultural hardships that came with the pandemic, and many joys she found during quarantine as well! Spring Quarter, I also created three of my own personal Photovoices that reflect my experience during the pandemic as a public health student. All of this will be permanently documented with the Washington State Historical Society.

What is the potential public health impact of the project?
These oral histories and photo voice serve as honest, personal reflections of the many people's experiences with COVID-19. They will have a public health impact because the personal stories and experiences shared will lift people's voices who may not have otherwise been reflected in the telling of COVID-19. As a class, we got a diverse group of interviewees from different communities, telling of different struggles. Capturing these stories is a huge part of public health because the numbers and statistics don't always accurately represent stories. By documenting these stories, future public health practitioners can come up with interventions that address many experiences.

What did you learn about public health practice from your final capstone project?
I learned how important experience is in representation of populations. In public health, we often focus on numbers and statistics. This has been especially relevant during the pandemic as we are constantly being presented numbers of cases, deaths, and more. While these statistics are important, the experiences of people are the only way to get the full picture of what is really going on in terms of mental and physical health. Methods such as oral histories and photo voice serve as ways to represent the underrepresented and move towards equity in interventions.

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Title: Marketing Outreach for Bloodworks NW Virtual Blood Drive Focusing on the LGBTQA+ Community

Location: Seattle, WA

Team Members: Emily Frink, Lilas Mekinawe, Macland Nyaga, Sofia Solomon, and Giada Szanyi

What did we do?
We designed marketing materials specific to the LGBTQA+ community and conducted outreach to promote a virtual blood drive that Bloodworks NW is hosting from May 8th-June 3rd. Our outreach material was specific to the LGBTQA+ community with the goal of increasing the number of blood donors from this specific community by eliminating potential barriers and reducing the stigma faced by this population.

What is the potential public health impact of our project?
The potential public health impact of this project is addressing and beginning to correct the social injustices that have been committed against the LGBTQA+ community, especially regarding blood donations. We hope to address and begin correcting the stigma surrounding this community, specifically within the medical field, and work to dismantle it.

What did we learn about public health practice from your final capstone project?

From this project we learned the value of equity lens’ in addressing public health problems by putting equity theories into praxis. Further, we learned how to take what we learned inside the classroom and apply it in a service-based learning setting. Our work has made us learn that our work within public health practice must be inclusive, accessible, and creative in order to increase health awareness and participation among targeted and vulnerable populations.

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Group 6: African-American target population

Team members: Samantha Arista, Sabrina Ebengho, Michelle Mvundura, Filsan Ahmed Abdisatar, Debbie Acheampong.

What did you do?

Our team created a flyer for a virtual blood drive in hopes to reach new donors from the African American community. Our aim was to educate about blood donation among the Black community and encourage people to donate. We used graphics that represent our targeted racial group and included statistics about the importance of Black blood donors.

What is the potential public health impact of this project? Our project’s goal was to help increase donation within African-American community members, to diversify

We aimed to raise awareness of under-representation of African American donors, diversify and help increase blood donations among this group. We hope that our work will help our target community see that gap in blood donations and understand health disparities that are related to lack of diverse blood donations.

What did you learn about public health practice from your final capstone project?

Trying to recruit people from a specific target population is more difficult than it seems. Especially, when it comes to donating blood. There are many beliefs and fears surrounding blood donations. Doing this virtually was also another challenge.

Reference
Spratling, R., & Lawrence, R. H. (2019). Facilitators and Barriers to Minority Blood Donations: A Systematic Review. Nursing Research, 68(3), 218–226. https://doi.org/10.1097/NNR.0000000000000355

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Who was on your team (if applicable):

Megan Main, Andrew Chhor, Yeojin Yoon, Natalie Anixter, Komalpreet Brar

What did you do:

We worked on outreaching to Asian-Americans to encourage them to donate blood at our virtual blood drive.  We accomplished this by using a social media campaign and outreach to community organizations such as asian affinity RSOs. Our team produced a flyer for our virtual blood drive that specifically targeted Asian-Americans with multiple languages that appealed to our target demographic.

What is the potential public health impact of this project:

Our project has the potential to diversify the local blood supply by encouraging Asian Americans to donate blood, in turn increasing blood transfusion success rates among minority groups.

What did you learn about public health practice from your final capstone project:

From our final capstone project, we learned how to effectively conduct outreach within our community, utilizing social media platforms, word-of mouth, and active outreach to encourage new donors and increase donor retention. We learned how to increase diversity in our outreach methods, using Asian-centered graphics and a story by Tony, an Asian male that has donated over 150 pints of blood over 50 years of service. Finally, we learned the significance of diverse blood donors in order to support the health and wellbeing of all people, including racial and ethnic minorities.

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This team was made up of Maria S. Ortiz, Adrianna Mitalas, Meagan McEnery, Yilin Feng, and Brenda Gonzalez Navarro. We created a flyer for a virtual blood drive with the main focus of targeting youth and young adults. Our aim was getting a diverse group of young adults to donate so we designed a ‘yearbook’ graphic for the flyer with racially/ethnically diverse cartoon students accompanied with quick relevant statistics that emulated a very ‘shareable social media story’ post. Teens and young adults contribute to a large portion of blood donations in the PNW. However, there has been a significant reduction in donations from this group of individuals since the COVID-19 pandemic. Through our flyer, we focused on how much Bloodworks NW relies on youth and young adults blood donations and in this way encourage them to take action in the form of blood donation. A particular focus was placed on the importance of ethnically and racially similar blood do target youth and young adults of color as well as providing accessible and concise information for our youth audience. As a group, we learned that we have to be intentional with our messaging in order to efficiently get our message across to our target audience.

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Who was on my team: Thu Nguyen, Ivana Kim, Alex Ziontz, Juilia Mitsch, Lexi Nims

What we did:
Spring q, we teamed up with Bloodworks Northwest to help increase the awareness of donating blood to a more diverse community. Our group originally focused on the disabled community, but due to unforseen circumstances and barriers, we had to change our target population to the general population. We ended up recuriting within the general community since we wanted to be able to serve everyone.

Public health impacts:
Increasing the awareness for the more blood donors in order to diversify the blood supply.

What did we learn:
We learned a lot about outreach and catering our resources towards our targeted population. Additionally, we learned the importance of marketing and the different ways we can help advocate different communities. We also learned a lot about the the barriers and capabilities bloodworks had in providing for the disabled community, but due to the limits, we were unable to fullfill this since it felt a it ableist targeting the disabled community. Therefore, we learned a lot about reflection and the ethics behind social justice.

Flyer:

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Who was on your team?
-Mayra Ojeda, Jocelyn Torres Mora, Celeste Anahi Granados, Diana Franco Laureano, Christopher Huizar, Sharah Mora-Ruiz
What did you do?
We created a flyer advocating for blood donation among the Latinx community. Our recruiting looked like asking different RSO's to publicly share our flyer. The different RSO's we reached out to was: CAMP, Multicultural sorority and fraternities, our own personal media platforms, and word of mouth with people in our daily interaction.
Members in our group also donated blood and platelets.
What is the potential public health impact of this project?

By advocating for blood donations among Latinx community, we are potentially destigmatizing the action of blood donation within our community. There is constant mistrust and miscommunication among medical personnel and Latinx communities and this outreach helps bring down those barriers. This outreach will provide more diverse blood for  blood transfusions thus resulting in  less medical complications. This outreach will also lead to future donations of blood, plasma, platelets, etc., and contributes to the education of blood donation in our community.
What did you learn about public health practice from your final capstone project?

We reflected though our service learning experience and gained a deeper understanding of the structural barriers there are in marginalized communities and the role public health plays in addressing community based problems.

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Who was on your team (if applicable)? Khashayar, Leilemah, Yejin, Kayla

What did you do? Created a podcast covering the intersection of living unhoused as an LGBTQ+ youth. We conducted research, and then worked with community stakeholders to conduct interviews. We used these interviews to create a podcast episode on the topic.

What is the potential public health impact of this project?  To promote education and awareness about this public health crisis to prevent further harm to the LGBTQ+ community, and rather increase compassion, support, and equity. Our work encourages the greater Seattle community to sign up and volunteer to help LGBTQ+ youth who need increased access to specialized resources and support.

What did you learn about public health practice from your final capstone project? We learned how to appropriately use storytelling and interviewing as a way of educating the public. The process gave us insight into the introspection and care that it takes to develop an appropriate interview, reach out to the community involved, and work with others to produce something that is respectful, educational, and impactful. Some other skills we worked on were podcast recording and editing, interpersonal skills, formulating interviews, and working in a team. Overall, this experience has taught us how special and important community work and interpersonal communication is in holistically tackling a specific health outcome.

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Who was on my team: Winter q, Lauren and Angel were on my team for the Literature Review but Spring q it was just me :)
Project:
Winter q, I teamed up with the Washington State Historical Society to do oral histories on an interviewee of our choosing. I ended up choosing my brother in order to capture his experience of COVID-19 at ASU as a freshman in the dorms. Angel, Lauren, and I wrote our lit analysis on the experience of Black disabled populations, using the life course perspective as our framework. This quarter, we carried our oral histories on other classmates at our site. I got to do my oral history project on Dave and was able to capture his own personal experience of the pandemic. We also created 3 of our own personal photovoices, in order to reflect on how it has been living through COVID-19 as public health students.
Public health impacts:
All of our oral histories and photo-voices are going into a showcase at the WSHS for future populations to see. These two projects are critical for future generations to see, in order to more fully understand how people experienced the pandemic. COVID-19 has disproportionately impacted different populations in the U.S. and these oral histories capture a diverse range of perspectives and experiences. These projects can guide future public health professionals in understanding the certain disproportionate health risks to COVID-19, inform public health practice, and educate populations.
What did you learn:
I learned a lot about my own personal experience of the pandemic through sharing my own oral history with Dave. I realized that I have been forced to grow in a lot of various ways this past year, in ways that I wouldn't have without my experiences. I've come to really recognize my own values and surround myself with people who share similar values or help me stick to my values. I also learned a lot about how important oral histories are to capturing population's experiences of different world events. American history is extremely whitewashed and one-sided, something that has been and will continue to be detrimental to population health and understanding the collective experience of different populations. Oral histories and photovoices are critical to ensuring that equity in history is reached.

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EXAMPLE:       Neighborhood House: Mental Health Educational Video and Informational Handout on Naming Our Feelings        

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EXAMPLE:       Neighborhood House: Mental Health Educational Video and Informational Handout on Naming Our Feelings        

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Our Team: Aarthi Yogendran, Sophie Noyers, Talia Horacek

What did you do?

Neighborhood House has an online library of book recordings for the families they serve to view. Our NH capstone project for SPH 491 was to record ourselves reading a book of our choice that would be appropriate for younger children. Aarthi recorded herself reading Malala’s Magic Pencil, written by Malala Yousafzai. Sophie recorded herself reading Breathing Makes it Better by Christopher Willard and Wendy O’Leary. Talia read We’re All Wonders by R. J. Palacio. For SPH 492, we put together an educational video that addresses ways to identify and cope with different emotions, communicating the importance of mental health. With the video, we also created an educational handout, providing more information and resources for families.

What is the potential public health impact of this project?

Younger children often learn new things from media sources, whether that be through T.V. shows or books, for example. Not everyone has access to these resources that often provide information for children to learn important life skills, or critical health information. By recording ourselves reading books and creating an informational video on mental health, we were able to help provide additional resources to children and their families who may not have access to this information otherwise. Mental health is a complex subject when it comes to talking about it with children, and parents might not know how to address feelings like anxiety and anger. Allowing children to have examples on how to identify the feelings in a fun video as well as the accompanied handout for parents, this will create a safe space for children to talk about the things that they are feeling.

What did you learn about public health practice from your final capstone project?

The Neighborhood House deliverables taught us how creating equity can take many different forms. When recording our storybooks, we realized that storytelling is such a powerful tool to share information. By creating a video for our SPH 492 deliverable, we additionally learned that the ways we communicate public health information to an audience may vary. For instance, in our mental health video, we had to use simpler language that was easier to understand for preschool aged children, in comparison to our handout that was created for teachers and other adults. We also learned that what we may believe is necessary and needed for a community may not be what the community needs, so it is critical to listen to what the community needs, and ensure that our actions reflect the needs of the community.

Link to our videos:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1q8r9-qWJm_Ns346btdp1LcUNoYzPifn15cLhytRCDSM/edit?usp=sharing

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EXAMPLE                        DOH: Oral History Interview with Judy Vue - Seattle, WA (Jennifer Tran's Capstone)

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EXAMPLE                        DOH: Oral History Interview with Judy Vue - Seattle, WA (Jennifer Tran's Capstone)

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What I did: I conducted an oral history interview with one of my good friends that I have known for a couple years. She is a first generation college student and is bilingual. I asked her questions about her migration and work history, along with questions about her thoughts on the COVID-19 vaccine.

Public Health Impact: The public health impact of doing oral histories on people within our community is that it can bring attention to the different voices within the community, determine what barriers that people may be facing, and resources that are needed for those who are disproportionately affected by COVID-19. It also helps to understand how to increase equity and access to the COVID-19 vaccine in order to create different media outlets of information that can address their concerns.

What I learned: From my final capstone project, I learned how crucial community engagement is in order to provide resources that are beneficial to the people within the community and how important it is to provide accurate information in regards to COVID-19. I learned that information needs to be published on multiple different platforms with various languages in order to effectively spread awareness amongst the community. With community engagement, I learned a lot from my interviewee about her thoughts regarding COVID-19 and how it has impacted her life. Her perspective is unique to her own lived experiences which varies from other people around her. By listening to her concerns, I was able to understand what factors played into her decision of wanting to get the COVID-19 vaccine.  She also discussed that the main way that she receives her information is through multiple different forms of media such as news articles and informational videos. This is helpful to understand what platforms works best to effectively educate and reach a wider population on all questions and concerns regarding COVID-19.

Media: I have included a snippet of my oral history with Judy. In the video, she is explaining how she would be interested in receiving the vaccine and what forms of media are best to get information out to her.

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EXAMPLE:       Neighborhood House: Storytelling and Mental Health      

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EXAMPLE:       Neighborhood House: Storytelling and Mental Health      

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Team Member:
Kayla Stanchfield

What I did: With Neighboorhood house, we have had the opportunity to provide learning material for the early education programs that NH provides to low-income, immigrant, and refugee families. Our first quarter, I created a storybook video of myself reading a children's book that is culturally appropriate for the demographic group served by NH. This quarter, I am creating a video for children that teaches them skills to regulate their emotions in an age appropriate way. I will also make a handout for parents so that they have the information they need to support their children with emotional regulation.

Public Health Impact:
These projects will give children educational material that provides representation, entertainment and health information. This material will support educators in their online teaching efforts, and make distance learning a bit more enjoyable for kids.

What I Learned:
Working with Neighborhood house gave me the opportunity to learn how to provide culturally and age appropriate informational material. I also learned a lot about video editing and strategies for health promotion in a video format.

Link to Storybook:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LKo3SCFHo7NRgw6dTMFcCaarsBucmCXb/view?usp=sharing