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Global Health Journalism: A Powerful Tool for MPH Students

March 03, 2017 | All Grades
By Liza Bronner Murrison

A medical team at Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai, India. Image by Joanne Siberner. India, 2012.

A health worker meets with a mother and child during a family-planning outreach campaign at a clinic in Machakos County, Kenya. Marie Stopes Kenya, part of the international health organization Marie Stopes International, conducts outreach campaigns offering contraception, health and STD screenings and pregnancy testing. Image by Paul Nevin. Kenya, 2014.

Jonathan O'Toole sits under a backward U.S. flag in his brother-in-law's living room in Nakuru, Kenya. Image by Paul Nevin. Kenya, 2015.

Bisharu al-Hussein, 42, sits with her young son, her 10th child, in their home in Gafarsa, Isiolo County, a goat-herding community in Kenya. Al-Hussein lost her ninth child after she began bleeding late in her pregnancy. The local health facility suffers from staffing shortages and a lack of supplies, so it was not able to treat her. After multiple transfers and $100 in transportation costs, she finally reached a hospital that could, but that was 15 hours after she had first noticed bleeding. It was too late. Image by Paul Nevin. Kenya, 2014.

From the ProjectSEE website. Image by ProjectSEE.

Participants in a PRONTO International emergency-obstetrics training session practice techniques for delivering a baby during obstructed labor. Image by Paul Nevin. Kenya, 2014.

During a childbirth simulation using fake blood, nurses and midwives crowd around a hospital bed in Naivasha, Kenya. The training sessions, designed by Seattle-based PRONTO International, use low-tech but realistic teaching tools to recreate the chaos often found in Kenya’s overburdened maternity wards. Image by Paul Nevin. Kenya, 2014.

In Isiolo County, Kenya, a Kenya Red Cross team gives a talk on child spacing and birth control in the shade of a tree. Image by Paul Nevin. Kenya, 2014.

A child receives an immunization as part of a Kenya Red Cross outreach program in rural West Pokot County, Kenya. For many in the area, the monthly mobile clinic, on a mat rolled out under a tree, is their only contact with the health system. Image by Paul Nevin. Kenya, 2014.

A home sits in the mountains in rural West Pokot County, Kenya. In these remote areas, access to the health system is severely limited, and maternal death rates are high. Kenya Red Cross is using community health workers to deliver basic health services and education. Image by Paul Nevin. Kenya, 2014.

Felistus Kyego, with Marie Stopes Kenya, prepares a contraceptive implant for a waiting patient as part of a rural family-planning outreach campaign by the health agency. In a country where 43 percent of births are unwanted or mistimed, nongovernmental organizations are stepping up efforts to fill a gap in access to contraceptives. Image by Paul Nevin. Kenya, 2014.

Adan Guracha Denge of the Kenya Red Cross talks to women in rural Isiolo County about family planning. Use of modern contraception is low in this predominantly Muslim community, and fertility rates are high. Image by Paul Nevin. Kenya, 2014.

New mothers learn about contraceptive methods during a rural family-planning outreach campaign hosted by Marie Stopes Kenya. The subdermal implant, which works for five years, proved popular once the women learned about its convenience and effectiveness. Image by Paul Nevin. Kenya, 2014.

Preparing to act the part of a woman in childbirth, a participant inserts the “baby” into the specially designed, anatomically correct PartoPants used in emergency obstetrics training designed by PRONTO International of Seattle. Image by Paul Nevin. Kenya, 2014.

Objectives

This Masters level lesson is designed to introduce journalism as an important tool for MPH students and researchers to communicate complex public health issues in an accessible way for the general public. It draws on the experiences of Joanne Silberner, an award-winning freelance multimedia journalist, artist-in-residence at the University of Washington, and recipient of several Pulitzer Center travel grants, as well as Paul Nevin, a former Pulitzer Center MPH Student Fellow and recipient of an MPH from the University of Washington. The lesson is intended to be highly interactive and focus on a broad range of topics, from developing a publishable story to addressing ethical concerns when working with marginalized populations. The course instructor may request that you explore some or all of the following resources and their respective questions prior to the in-person session.

  Resources

Please explore the resources and associated questions prior to the in-class workshop because they will form the basis for our in-depth discussion about the benefits and challenges associated with public health journalism.

  1. “Cancer’s Lonely Soldier in Uganda” by Joanne Silberner (http://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/uganda-cancer-institute-stigma-diagnosis-oncologist )
  2. “An Ounce of Prevention” by Joanne Silberner (http://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/india-cancer-prevention-institute-stigma-diagnosis-oncologist-muslim-women )
  3. “Seattle Group’s Training Program Saves Lives of Moms and Babies in Kenya” by Paul Nevin (http://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/seattle-training-program-pronto-kenya-maternal-child-health)
  4. “A Christian Religious Extremist on Anti-American Jihad in Kenya” by Paul Nevin (http://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/kenya-united-states-anti-america-christian-religious-abortion-rights-homosexuality-otoole-horsely)
  5. “A Nurse’s Desperate Plea: Show Me the Ebola Money” By Karin Huster (http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2014/12/19/371861712/a-nurses-desperate-plea-show-me-the-ebola-money)
  6. “How to Write about Africa” by Binyavanga Wainaina (http://granta.com/how-to-write-about-africa/)
  7. “How John Moore Covered the Ebola Outbreak” (http://time.com/3627482/photographing-ebola/)
  8. Radi-Aid and The Radiator Awards (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJLqyuxm96k and http://www.rustyradiator.com/)
Educator Notes: 

Interesting

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