public health

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  7/1/2020
  

  As Young People Drive Infection Spikes, College Faculty Members Fight For The Right To Teach Remotely

  Many schools are giving students the option to take classes remotely while expecting faculty to teach classes in person.

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• SOURCE: Nursing Clio
  6/24/2020
  

  Makers of Living, Breathing History: The Material Culture of Homemade Facemasks

  by Erika L. Briesacher

  Material culture centers objects as historical documents that can be read like a text; whether highlighting the physical piece or searching for the biography behind it, this approach reveals complex sociocultural behavior.

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• SOURCE: TIME
  6/30/2020
  

  The Surprisingly Deep—and Often Troubling—History of ‘Social Distancing’

  Doctoral student Lily Scherlis traced the evolution of the term in a “social history of social distancing,” from the earliest reference she could find in English—in the 1831 translation of Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne’s memoirs of his friendship with Napoleon—to the Social Distance Scale that sociologist Emory Bogardus created in the aftermath of the Red Summer of 1919.

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• 6/21/2020
  

  Viral Consequences

  by David Marks

  The indifferent response of the Trump administration to the COVID-19 pandemic and the repressive police response to protests are a signal that we need a political and social transformation to address the ongoing global climate crisis. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  6/10/2020
  

  How Data Became One of the Most Powerful Tools to Fight an Epidemic

  As public-health experts have known since the 19th century, information can be the best medicine. What new data streams could help quell future outbreaks?

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• 5/31/2020
  

  COVID and the Deadly Logic of Efficiency in Meatpacking and Elder Care

  by Jeff Kolnick

  The economic logic of efficiency is responsible for the severity and deadliness of the Coronavirus outbreak in both meatpacking plants and nursing homes. 

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• 5/31/2020
  

  COVID-19 is Devastating Native American Communities. History Illuminates Why.

  by Pete Sigal, Robbie Ethridge, and Nancy Shoemaker

  Centuries of unequal access to resources and decision-making served to weaken indigenous health across the Americas and beyond.

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• 5/31/2020
  

  Stop the Machine: Why We Should Resist Online Learning

  by Jonathan Rose

  A history professor argues that, even given the risks of COVID, the intellectual and social missions of higher education will be crippled if in-person education isn't resumed soon. 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  5/23/2020
  

  This Montana Farm Boy Became a Scientific Legend, Developing Vaccines to Protect Kids Worldwide

  Maurice Hilleman helped develop vaccines that have saved millions of children from death from contagious disease.

• 
• SOURCE: WBUR
  5/26/2020
  

  How History Informs Our Current Crisis (Audio)

  Historian Julian Zelizer contextualizes the mask debate, the U.S. death toll, social distancing, and the U.S.'s international standing.

• 
• SOURCE: Philadelphia Inquirer
  5/28/2020
  

  Should the U.S. Favor Public Health or the Economy? History Shows they’re Inseparable

  by Robert I. Field

  Historical evidence suggests that public health infrastructure, which is lacking for COVID, is key to stable and secure recovery from a pandemic.

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  5/26/2020
  

  America’s Response to Coronavirus Pandemic is ‘Incomprehensibly Incoherent,’ Says Historian Who Studied the 1918 Flu

  According to historian John M. Barry, Americans have not learned their lesson since 1918.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  5/24/2020
  

  Reopening too Soon: Lessons from the Deadly Second Wave of the 1918 Flu Pandemic

  J. Alexander Navarro of the University of Michigan Center for the History of Medicine has compiled archival records of the 1918 Influenza pandemic in 43 U.S. cities. The findings suggest staying closed helps prevent a deadly second wave of infections.  

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  5/27/2020
  

  Larry Kramer, Author and Outspoken AIDS Activist, Dies at 84

  Even some of the officials Mr. Kramer accused of “murder” and “genocide” recognized that his outbursts were part of a strategy to shock the country into dealing with AIDS as a public-health emergency.

• 
• SOURCE: The Guardian
  5/22/2020
  

  Coronavirus Will Reshape Our Cities – We Just Don't Know How Yet

  Disease has been a catalyst for significant changes in urban infrastructure; history suggests COVID-19 will be no different, though what those changes might be is uncertain.

• 
• SOURCE: The New York Times
  5/19/2020
  

  College Calendars in the Pandemic: No Fall Break and Home by Thanksgiving

  As universities announce plans to bring back students, a pattern is emerging: shorter semesters to avoid late-fall infections.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  5/19/2020
  

  The Potential Risk of Chasing a COVID-19 Vaccine

  by Heidi Morefield

  Vaccine development is important to fighting viruses, but can’t come at the expense of other means of prevention.

• 
• SOURCE: Nursing Clio
  5/19/2020
  

  A Complete Halt to the Liquor Traffic: Drink and Disease in the 1918 Epidemic

  by E. Thomas Ewing

  The most influential organization advocating for prohibition, the WCTU pressed for ratification of the 18th Amendment banning the sale of alcohol as influenza raged in 1918. But their celebration was short-lived.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  5/18/2020
  

  Most Medical Professionals Aren’t Racist — But Our Medical System Is

  by Ella St. George Carey

  The medical profession perpetuates racial inequality in health outcomes in large part because medical training still treats white and nonwhite bodies as fundamentally different.

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• SOURCE: Los Angeles Review of Books
  5/18/2020
  

  Pandemic Narratives and the Historian

  A group of historians including Alison Bashford, Simuka Chigudu, Deborah Coen, Richard Keller, Julie Livingston, Nayan Shah and Paul Weindling discuss the helpful and harmful ways historians have examined the COVID-19 crisis.