Several of our MCH students attended the 2021 American Public Health Association (APHA) conference, October 24-27, in-person or online. What follows is a post from one of the attendees.
Briasha Jones, BS
In October, I had the pleasure of attending the American Public Health Association’s annual meeting/conference in Denver, Colorado. It was very exciting to be attending in person this year.
One of the sessions that was most memorable and that struck me the most was the opening session, specifically the presentation that was given by the former APHA President, Lisa Carlson, MPH, MCHES. As we all know, the Covid-19 pandemic has had devastating effects around the world. These effects can be felt in almost every aspect of our everyday lives as we strive to get back to “normal” or “the way things used to be.” With more and more people getting vaccinated every day, cases and deaths are clearly decreasing, however, it may take more than just vaccines to find that “normal.”
Lisa Carlson brought up the important topic of grief. She listed some major lows of the pandemic including: “supply shortages plus scarce resources, record wildfire season, disrupted routines, police killings of Black people, Texas power crisis, the unknown, mass shootings, unemployment, and pandemic persistence,” and stated that the culmination of all of these events equals an overwhelming feeling of constant grief. Interestingly, hearing all of these facets of the pandemic listed and hearing them named as trauma validated some feelings that I have been having since the start of the pandemic, specifically while I have been in school. I have had conversations with friends in which we try to figure out why we have been feeling so drained, unmotivated, or just tired. After a discussion, we concluded that a lot of our feelings were fueled by everything going on around us. So much of what is going on is very heavy and even if we don’t notice, it subconsciously weighs us down.
There is also the second part of this pandemic-induced grief which is the grief felt by over 6.5 million estimated Americans who are at some stage of grief due to losing a loved one from Covid-19. She also noted that this grief is disproportionately felt by people of color. Her estimate is based on the average of nine close relatives being bereaved after a death. I can’t help but think that since the term close relative does not include friends or non-married partners, that the number of Americans actively grieving a COVID death is so much higher.
From this portion of her talk, the main message was that grief is mental health and a public health crisis and that is the next wave of this pandemic. Lisa went on to challenge public health professionals to use their resources to fight this next wave including calling on some unexpected resources, such as nature, although not everyone has equal access to nature (another topic for another blog post).
This topic may not be a particularly cheerful one, but it is a very important topic to acknowledge as we are living through it.
Briasha Jones, BS, is a first year MPH student concentrating in Maternal and Child Health. She plans to graduate in May 2022. Her research interests include disparities in maternal and infant mortality, women’s reproductive and sexual health and midwifery care. In her spare time, she enjoys cooking, Netflix binging, cycling classes and spending time with family!
