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The Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP) empowers first-time parents to transform their lives and create better futures for themselves and their babies. NFP works by having specially educated nurses regularly visit young, first-time moms-to-be, starting early in the pregnancy and continuing through the child’s second birthday. Like others working in healthcare and the helping professions more broadly, these dedicated providers have since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic been forced to shift from in-person visits to mobile and Zoom meetings. They were used to sitting on couches and holding babies face to face; now, with remote work and continuous waves of the pandemic, they’re facing burnout and compassion fatigue.
Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women in the United States. Although most breast cancers are diagnosed in older women, about nine percent of all breast cancer cases in the U.S. are found in women younger than 45. Risk for breast cancer among young women varies, based on factors such as family and personal history of cancer. Many young women do not know their breast cancer risk or are not aware of ways to lower their risk.
What you see as you drive through Chaffee County, Colorado, is beauty—nearby snowcapped mountain peaks, clear blue skies more days than not, and aspen forests. What you don’t usually see is the struggle many people face to find housing, feed their children, and tackle all of the challenges raised during the long months of COVID-19.
Although HIV/AIDS has remained a significant public health challenge since it first emerged back in the early 1980s, the spotlight on the virus has waned as treatments have rendered it a largely treatable chronic condition. However, HIV/AIDS continues to affect thousands of people in the U.S., and vulnerable communities– particularly women and people of color– still face unique challenges in accessing prevention, care, and treatment resources.
Around the country, parents and care givers continues to struggle to find quality, affordable child care. Infant care can be especially challenging to secure. For parents who are working low-wage jobs, salaries are often eclipsed by daycare costs, making investment in a career seem counter-productive. The Oregon Health Authority (OHA) is committed to engaging Oregon residents in advocating for program and policy solutions to the health challenges that impact them the most. Finding quality, affordable infant child care is one such challenge, in the state.
The Women’s Foundation of California’s Women’s Policy Institute (WPI) is striving to increase the number of women and trans people who are actively engaged in public policy so that they can have a greater impact on the fundamental conditions that affect their lives, families, and communities. The WPI understands that storytelling forms an important part of the process of amplifying the voices of historically marginalized groups during the policymaking process, galvanizing community support for particular policies, and raising the awareness and consciousness of legislators as well as potential allies and supporters.
Public health practitioners are increasingly focused on the critical need to address the relationship between climate change and health. Leading the way on statewide efforts to build community resiliency for mitigating these impacts is the Oregon Health Authority (OHA), which in the fall of 2016 released a Climate and Health Resilience Plan. Among a range of actions outlined in the plan is the use of storytelling methods to engage local community members in learning about and responding to climate change.
At StoryCenter, we've heard time and time again from public health professionals of the need to put the "public" back into public health, and while many talk about community engagement, they're still seeking successful and viable ways to put it into practice. This is what the Rocky Mountain Public Health Training Center (RMPH-TC) said to us when they initiated a partnership to bring StoryCenter's storytelling webinars and workshops to public health professionals across the Rocky Mountain region.
Project Re•Vision aims to help disabled people share their experiences with healthcare providers and policymakers, in hopes of eliminating stereotypes, increasing understanding, and improving care and policy. “There’s a lot of evidence that people with disabilities are invalidated, and their healthcare is poorer than those without disabilities," states Project Re•Vision Director Dr. Carla Rice. “If we can bring a disability studies lens to care and begin to get providers– from doctors onward– to see disability as another identity category, as opposed to a biomedical or individual problem, that’s going to go a long way to improve healthcare interactions.”
While significant gains have been made in raising awareness about the challenges faced by LGBTQ-identified young people in navigating familial and community stigma and accessing queer-friendly health and mental health services, these youth continue to experience discrimination and misunderstanding in many mental health settings. The “Our Space” program of Sunny Hills Services (Hayward, CA) provides a safe environment for LGBTQ youth to talk about their difficulties and successes. Our Space also advocates with providers for improved service delivery.
Type II Diabetes is higher among immigrants and refugees in the United States than in the general population. Many immigrants and refugees do not receive the healthcare information that they need, about the disease. Healthy behavior changes, such as increased physical activity, dietary modifications, and medication adherence, are often challenging for immigrants and refugees to implement, due to language barriers, cultural norms that discourage seeking healthcare, and socio-economic barriers to accessing services. Low health literacy disproportionately affects racial and ethnic minority groups.
Recognizing that the globalized food system dominating food production and consumption in the United States is both unhealthy and unsustainable, committed activists around the country have for years now been exploring ways to create alternatives. The United States Department of Agriculture-funded Food Dignity project is a research, education, and extension effort bringing together five local organizations and three universities, to learn how to build healthy, sustainable food systems.
Graduate-level education in public health often involves professional field placements that test the knowledge of students within contexts and conditions of community and international settings. Reflection on field placements can become a critical part of the training process, for pre-professions. The stories of student successes and challenges in these placements assists in telling the story of an educational institution's own goals and accomplishments for preparing the public health leaders of tomorrow. The Fielding School of Public Health at the University of California, Los Angeles, understands the importance of supporting its graduate students in sharing stories of how service placements have changed them, as people and as professionals.
Community Bridges in Central New Hampshire promotes opportunities for people with developmental disabilities to exert positive control over their lives. The organization focuses on supporting all members of the local community– those with developmental disabilities, and those without– in benefitting from caring, connected relationships. In the fall of 2014, Community Bridges reached out to StoryCenter, with a desire to explore how story sharing and storymaking can break down the stigma of disability and promote mutually helpful relationships.
The goal of the Banyan Tree Project (BTP) is to eliminate HIV stigma in Asian and Pacific Islander communities across the United States and its Pacific territories. The BTP's communications and community engagement campaign is led by the Asian and Pacific Islander Wellness Center in San Francisco (A&PIWC), and is funded by the Centers for Disease Control. At the heart of the project is a commitment to sharing stories about HIV that empower people with knowledge and inspire action.
In recent years, and in tandem with longstanding social justice organizing efforts, the broader public health community has begun to acknowledge and address the significant health impacts of mass incarceration. The Transitions Clinic Network, a model begun at San Francisco General Hospital, provides comprehensive health services to formerly incarcerated women and men. The Network is now expanding nationwide.
Nurses tend to practice behind pulled curtains, closed doors, and on their own, with one patient at a time. Shifts change, and the ritual of “report”– the passing on of objective and subjective information about patients, stands in for storytelling. Rarely is there an opportunity other than the sharing of tales of nightmarish patient encounters over drinks, for nurses to reflect on their practice. Nursing education does not prepare its practitioners to write or reflect, often squeezing out creativity and subjectivity. Without opportunities for reflection, nurses struggle to process the suffering and victories they experience with their patients.