Boise State public health graduate students contributed to #WhyPublicHealthMatters, a national blog. Sarah Toevs, professor in the Department of Public Health and Population Science for 21 years and the director of the Center for the Study of Aging, asked her students to communicate why public health is important.
The graduate students created sixty-second video summaries on the topic. The students are of diverse backgrounds and were able to collaborate to create unique perspectives.
During the pandemic, many people have questioned public health and its role in an emergency. The most common point brought up by students in their video summaries is that public health is an invisible entity. Toevs explained, “Public health is working well when no one knows it’s there. It’s clean water, clean air, and climate management. It is invisible yet such a vital component of our community.”
Toevs also said that having students present to a larger audience proved beneficial. It’s important, she said, to create opportunities like the national blog posts for graduate students – those who will be caring for diverse communities in the future.
Public health experts are able to take knowledge from the national level to the local level to create an atmosphere of trust, explained Toevs. #WhyPublicHealthMatters shows the importance of training the next generation of public health workers. Students need practice with communication and to understand the effect that language has on the public.
Read the blog and watch the videos online.
By Hannah McNamee