Last week was National Public Health Week, and our Hope + Wellbeing VISTA, Ashlee Van Schyndel - a graduate student at University of Louisville and the Governing Councilor and AJPH Editorial Board Representative for the American Public Health Association Student Assembly -
wrote a blog post
where she talks about the marrying of public health concepts and art to transform lives in support of a more healthy, just, and hopeful society.
She wrote, "One way public health interventions can manifest is through art... For instance, a friend of mine, Jenny, recently did a series of makeup looks on viruses [Coronavirus depicted above]—interpretations of viruses and using her face as a canvas. In the comments section, she was able to provide basic information vetted by places such as the Centers for Disease Control and other resources to people who may not be versed in public health. For one of the posts, I was invited to provide background on the disease as an anthropologist and public health specialist to educate her audience. Despite the fact that makeup may not be where you might expect to find information on diseases and how to avoid them, it demonstrates that marrying arts with information may help introduce and expose information to new audiences."
Jenny's use of makeup to visualize and educate is just one example of how important the arts have been during the COVID-19 pandemic. National movements like Creating Healthy Communities: Arts & Public Health in America are also featuring how the arts can impact public health, and recently launched a new
COVID-19 arts-response repository
.
"This is an open-access repository to help professionals across sectors leverage creativity and the arts in responses to COVID-19," said Jill Sonke, Director, Center for the Arts in Medicine, University of Florida College of the Arts.
So - whether you're binging movies and shows on Netflix, reading, listening to hours of music, or creating visual art - I hope you remember how the arts may have supported your health and wellbeing during this time, expanding the way you understand the pandemic, and think about the future.
With gratitude,
Josh Miller and the IDEAS xLab team and Board
Photo: A makeup interpretation of COVID-19 complete with information from Jenny’s
Instagram
virus makeup series.
