This week, we spoke to Dr. Melanie Thompson and the Emory Outbreak Response Team. Dr. Thompson emphasized the importance of ensuring that the community (aka the target recipients) were always included in the decision-making process. The Emory Outbreak Response Team also talked about the challenges in talking to people who did not necessarily agree with them about the vaccine, and how it was important to listen to them and work with them to find innovative ways to spread information.

Seeing the ways that the community can come together to solve AIDS or combat misinformation gives me hope. However, it also gives an insight into how the religious right have been able to effectively organize. If you have a large group of people that agree that congregate each week, it is easy to convert that into voting power if you promote the respective messages. It also helps a community elect a leader, because if you are a part of this community, you already have a set base that will vote for you.

However, this also makes me wonder how to engage those who do not usually involve themselves in activism. For example, in the Cambodian American community, we have the reputation of not voting or caring about politics. However, this is exactly the sentiment that leads to candidates that do not serve the Cambodian American community. Furthermore, high poverty rates, low levels of education, and the fact that most are refugees of a Genocide provide many accessibility issues if they want to become politically involved. While I believe that most Cambodian Americans can agree that certain issues are present, I wonder how that can be redirected to direct action.

On the other hand, I see a lot of movement on my corner of social media towards social justice, but Millennials and Gen-Z seem discouraged by the appearance of a lack of action. I wonder if this is because we are focusing on national issues and want big flashy actions, even though it’s difficult to get national issues to come to a consensus, and local issues are not receiving the same headlines unless it’s extremely controversial. If so, should individuals pay more attention to local politics? If not, how do Millennials and Gen-Z have to channel their support more effectively into legislation?

While the sudden transition to an online workplace initially caused fear and uncertainty, many employees found that they didn’t want to go back to their offices. This has caused a lot of questions regarding the most enticing ways for companies to retain their workforce while still managing to create a workplace culture.

However, there are some jobs that make it either more difficult or nearly impossible to work remotely. While we mostly discussed the example of nursing, physicians are also a part of the workforce that mostly require to be in-person. Some providers can work via telemedicine, such as psychiatrists, but certain physical manifestations of life such as blood tests or lung sounds can only be performed when in contact with another healthcare professional.

A similarly pressing issue is the issue of physician burnout. According to one study, at the end of 2021 and the beginning of 2022, 63% of physicians showed at least 1 sign of burnout. Part of the reason for this burnout is the inability of physicians to practice as they wish, which includes suboptimal working conditions such as having to rush from room to room or fighting with insurance companies.

Many in the medical field blame medicalization and the “business of medicine” for creating this work environment that directly clashes with what doctors had expected when they entered the field. But now that businesses are scrambling to redesign their workplaces, does this bring an opportunity to reshape how healthcare environments are structured to ensure that physicians, PAs, nurses, and others are less likely to suffer from burnout? Or will healthcare environments be told to “wait” until after COVID is “over,” and change never occurs because the momentum has been lost?

Today we met with Dr. Steven Thrasher, a professor of journalism at Northwestern who is currently on tour for his book, The Viral Underclass. In his book, he discusses 12 points that have contributed to how viruses have exposed the social determinants that keep marginalized peoples from achieving equity.

Something that struck me with Thrasher’s book was the humanity that was involved when discussing the relationship between the virus and marginalized peoples. While viruses expose inequities, they also expose how we connect to one another. While viruses such as HIV and Monkeypox originate their spread in particular communities, they expose the intricacies and tightness of communities that are formed when they are accepted as part of the norm. Other viruses, such as COVID, while concentrated in marginalized communities, have managed to spread to all parts of society, via breathing, one of the most integral parts of human commonalities and connection. Mere presence or conversation, methods that connect all humans to one another, was the perfect pathway for a virus to take advantage of.

Unfortunately, this form of transmission also exposes inequalities. It can be from contact with neighbors and colleagues or simple exposure to more people leading to a greater chance of an infected person. However, society interprets this as the person’s fault for getting the virus, or as an excuse to avoid the marginalized population so they don’t get sick.

Taking this perspective of humanity and knowing inequality, how do we shift blame from the infected person/population to the virus itself? How, in an individualist society, do we recognize that it’s not just the individual actions, but also the environment that increases the risk? If this is true, where do we draw the line between blaming outside sources and blaming ourselves for inequities or products of inequity? At what point should the government intervene? How do we maintain humanity throughout this process?

This week, we spoke to Susan Channa, who previously worked at Emory during the time of the pandemic and helped to clarify information about COVID-19. She provided an in-depth presentation of how to handle the media if one were to interview with the press. As the CDC was unable to clearly provide necessary information to the public, other institutions, such as Emory helped to fill that gap.

Susan Channa’s work is especially important as science communication is clearly lacking in the general public. It’s not as if most people can pick up a generic scientific article and understand it. Because the CDC and other public health institutions have been unable to clearly and effectively communicate to the public, others have stepped up to fill the void. While most have good intentions, such as Emory, and others simply make mistakes, this has also provided the perfect breeding ground for misinformation to spread, such as through the conspiracy theory, QAnon.

So what factors of QAnon make it so effective in its communication? One of the answers lies in its ability to communicate. Some describe the conspiracy theory as a game, akin to Dungeons & Dragons, where anyone can contribute to the story that they’ve crafted. QAnon platforms employ memes and a way of interaction that makes you believe that you have come up with new ideas and see novel patterns. In this, accessibility is increased, so anyone can join and contribute towards a community of like-minded people that ultimately becomes addicting. It does not help that social media algorithms are able to easily recommend similar groups that serve as the gateway to this cycle. Furthermore, social media influencers gain trust and perpetrate the lies for their own financial or other personal gains.

But why did QAnon conspiracies gain traction in the first place? Most of this can be attributed to growing partisanship and distrust in the government. When the CDC sends out unclear, mixed messaging at one of the most vulnerable times in recent memory, and the President of the United States, the most powerful person in the United States, is contradicting that messaging, it’s no surprise that people look to alternative sources for an all-encompassing explanation of their world. And this is what QAnon achieves.

This week, Sandy Thurman visited our class to discuss the government’s response to pandemics. Throughout her presentation, she highlighted communication and community-building as essential tools for progress.

Sandy Thurman centered her presentation around answering some major questions. First, who are we using to communicate the message? For the HIV/AIDS epidemic, Thurman let us know of world leaders and celebrities such as Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, and Elton John. But similarly, we were given the example of Ryan White, a small-town boy with hemophilia who shared his story with the world and captured the public’s attention.

Similar to HIV/AIDS, when COVID first started, it was Tom Hanks sharing his positive COVID status that shook many Americans into realizing the immediacy and seriousness of the situation.

I found that President Biden attempted to use similar tactics with a campaign that enlisted celebrities to come to the White House, such as Olivia Rodrigo for vaccines and BTS in order to talk about anti-Asian hate crimes. At the time, they trended on Twitter for their appearances, but I wonder if their appearances truly changed people’s minds, or if it only energized the same group of people who already had been vaccinated. However, at the same time, I don’t know if someone who has a following with the vaccine-hesitancy or anti-vaccine crowd would be willing to come and speak out because it could lead to a lot of negative reactions from their fans. And in this polarizing climate, it could lead to violent threats against them. However, if they were trusted sources, it could have at least started the conversation to getting vaccinated. But this comes back to Thurman’s question—how do we get to the last people? Especially when high-profile influencers, politicians, and groups like QAnon have made it their mission to sow distrust in the vaccine?

On a personal level, you can say that some people can’t be saved and let it go. But if you’re in public health, if they are the last ones left, do you still try? If so, what are some strategies that can be used? How do you gain trust in people who have learned to distrust you?

~ Emie Ung