The People’s Social Epi Project: PDX
Overview
Racial health inequities research—much of which is done within social epidemiology—is overwhelmingly positivist and reductionist. Moreover, most work has remained unapologetically apolitical and blind to power-knowledge relationships. Pervading procedural and methodological norms—rooted in White supremacist logics and methods, and colonial “White possessive” proclivities—function to conjure and (re)circulate power-blind and pathologizing hegemonic narratives of health inequities that center whiteness, masking the agency/voice of those actually experiencing the burden of racial health inequities. This context necessitates concerted efforts to remix, reimagine, and decolonize racial health equity research and discourse.
Drawing from critical race, decolonizing, and Black feminist theory literatures, this effort—PSEP:PDX—is a portfolio of three projects developed to “center the margins” and co-create counternarratives to traditional health equity research processes that enact epistemic oppression and erasure. The projects, supported via an OHSU-PSU SPH Antiracism Faculty Fellowship, represent a mix of YPAR, visual art, music, and poetry—all as embodied expression of racial health equity knowledge.
PROJECT #1: The yHEART Decolonizing Data Hub
Youth Health Equity Action and Research Training (yHEART) is an ongoing program in collaboration with Self Enhancement Inc (SEI). For this project, we will train and work with a cohort of 10 youth researchers to lay the groundwork for a decolonizing data hub—with support from Drs. Andres Lopez and Mira Mohsini of Coalition of Communities of Color, Dr. Aileen Duldulao of MCHD, and artist/art professor Sharita Towne. Youth researchers will attend a series of 24 Training and Research Sessions over the two-year period.
PROJECT #2: The Public Health MixTape Project
This project will build upon my ongoing work to explore more inclusive pedagogies for learning about/analyzing population health inequities within public health classrooms. We will review and analyze ~15 terms of students’ “Public Health MixTape” assignments—each consisting of analyses of 10 health-equity-related songs. We will identify the most common songs and prominent themes, using them as the basis for the creation of The Public Health MixTape podcast. Podcast episodes will feature SPH faculty, students, and community leaders/members in discussion of the music and health equity.
Preliminary review and analysis as presented at the 2023 meeting of the Society for Public Health Education
Stay tuned: The Public Health MixTape Podcast is coming soon!
PROJECT #3: The Public Health Poetry Project
In collaboration with SEI and Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon (APANO), this project builds upon my pathbreaking and award-winning work at the intersections of poetry and public health. We will hold a series of youth poetry competitions related, broadly, to health equity and community health. There will be three competitions each year: Black History Month (February), National Minority Health Month/National Poetry Month (April), and Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month (May). We will develop poetry chapbooks for each competition in collaboration with local artists/presses. We will also host a series of youth poetry workshops.
Highlights from the 2023 Stats & Stanzas public health poetry project event in May 2023
Highlights from Summer 2022 Poetry Workshops with SEI youth
A selection of works based on PSEP PDX
Petteway, RJ & ^Rivera, SM (2023). “The Poetics of a People’s Social Epi: Poetry Workshops to Advance Epistemic & Health Justice with Black Youth In Portland, OR”. 151st Meeting of the American Public Health Association, Atlanta, GA, November 12-15.
Petteway, RJ, ^Rivera, SM, and *Amadi, U (2023). “The Youth Health Equity and Action Research Training Program—yHEART PDX: ‘Centering the Margins’ to Decolonize Local SDH Research and Practice” . 79th Meeting of the Oregon Public Health Association, Corvallis, OR, October 10-11.
Petteway, RJ & ^Rivera, SM (2023). “Unsettling the Place-Health Gaze: Youth Geopoems as Epistemic Disobedience and Resurgence”. Royal Geographic Society Annual International Conference, London, UK, August 29-September 1.
^Rivera, SM & Petteway, RJ (2023). “The Public Health MixTape: Sonic Pedagogies of Health & Epistemic Justice”. Society for Public Health Education Annual Conference, Atlanta, GA, March 21-24.
[^ denotes graduate student | * denotes youth research scholar]