Description
Public health officers and workers face difficult and sometimes hostile interactions with their communities; some have experienced threats against themselves and even their families. Restoring trust requires a skill set that allows public health personnel to have depolarizing conversations with community members and officials about controversial public health issues.
The goal of this interactive workshop is to help public health officials and frontline workers learn a method to have these difficult but potentially productive conversations with community members and partners, working toward civility, understanding, and identifying common ground. The methods used are based on the APHA Code of Public Health Ethics.
Speakers:
Dr. Beth Malow is Burry Chair in Cognitive Childhood Development, Professor and Vice-Chair for Academic Affairs in the Department of Neurology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. She is a graduate in Science and Health Communication at the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science, Stony Brook, New York. Beth is also active in civil discourse, organizing and moderating workshops for a national bridge-building organization, Braver Angels, including the Truth and Trust in Public Health Project.
Dr. Leslie Lopato is a retired psychiatrist whose work focused on Hospital Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry. She also chaired a hospital ethics committee for over 10 years. Leslie has been active in Braver Angels since 2017, and has worked in a number of volunteer frontline and leadership roles. For the past two years she has been working on Braver Angels’ Truth and Trust Project, whose mission is rebuilding trust between ordinary citizens and public health.
Cost:
APHA members: Free
Non-members: $10