How to End a Pandemic

1 Credit · Level: Undergraduate

A story of pandemic response can speak louder than a thousand research studies. Oral histories from public health emergencies can provide crucial insights into the experiences of epidemic response that help us understand public health preparedness, response capabilities, and local, national, and international strengths and vulnerabilities. In this course, students will learn about social science, oral history, and journalistic ethics and research methods that are deployed to learn about disease outbreaks and engage with historians, medical humanities researchers, policy makers, and journalists. Our emphasis is on public health emergency responders from medical, public health, politics, business, research, policy, and community mobilization sectors. During this course, students will have the opportunity to conduct oral history interviews and work with transcripts from the How to End a Pandemic archive. The course will conclude with reflections and plans for future student engagements at the intersection of oral history and medical research.