First published on October 7, 2019 in observance of the COPH’s 35^th anniversary celebration.

Advocacy is as important in public health as data analyses and needs’ assessments.

But students have traditionally lacked advocacy experience.

In 2018, Dr. Karen Liller, a USF College of Public Health (COPH) professor specializing in injury prevention and health education, decided to remedy that situation by starting the Activist Lab at the COPH.

The group, which is run with the help of two research assistants and a six-student advisory board made up of graduate and undergraduate students, provides interdisciplinary advocacy, education, research and service opportunities for students to develop the skills that will promote their success as effective public health advocates and leaders.

The Activist Lab, directed by Liller, is the second such lab in the country, with the first being at Boston University’s School of Public Health.

Liller says she had been wanting to start a program like the Activist Lab at the COPH for a while, to compliment the Doctoral Student Leadership Institute she began as dean of the USF Graduate School, now known as the Office of Graduate Studies.

“I strongly believed students needed much more preparation in leadership and advocacy skills before they graduated,” Liller commented.

In just one year of its existence, hundreds of students have taken part in the Activist Lab’s educational and service opportunities, which include activism boot camps, seminars, guest speakers, journal clubs, writing groups, research efforts and public health in a minute videos. These videos—only 60 seconds long—have featured faculty and community leaders discussing pertinent public health issues, everything from the importance of voting to refugee health.

According to Liller, some of the Activist Lab’s first-year highlights include:

• work with Dr. Mark Roberts and other University of Pittsburgh researchers on a measles simulator for Florida (called FRED Florida Measles Simulator), which shows how cases of the viral infection can grow in an area with just a 10 percent drop in immunizations
• a gun violence prevention and advocacy seminar, held in partnership with USF Health and led by Parkland shooting survivors David Hogg and Emma González

Things won’t slow down for the Activist Lab anytime soon. In addition to the continuation of seminars, speakers and learning opportunities, the organization has the following things planned for the future:

• a boot camp on the prevention of firearm violence, scheduled for January
• a new program called “More Opportunities to Use Learned Advocacy” (MOULA), where students work with particular agencies, such as Moms Demand Action and the Guardian ad Litem program, on advocacy issues
• the launch of a new podcast series called “Advocation—Change It Up!” The first podcast features Dr. Jill Roberts, a COPH alumna and assistant professor of global health, discussing the importance of immunizations.
• an oral presentation on activism, to be delivered at the 2019 American Public Health Association (APHA) meeting in November

The Activist Lab serves as an exciting hub of learning and action for students to become directly involved in practicing leadership and advocacy skills, says Liller, who sees the lab’s numbers growing and its reach expanding beyond the college and university to the state, nation and world. 

“For example, with our podcast new persons will be reached and advocacy skills can be expanded and practiced,” remarked Liller. “Students can become part of our advisory board and really help shape the direction of the lab. They can participate in all of our events, and as we grow more and more opportunities will become available.”

Story by Donna Campisano, USF College of Public Health

The post Teaching advocacy via the Activist Lab appeared first on College of Public Health News.

USF College of Public Health’s (COPH) Dr. Karen Liller, an expert in injury prevention, has taken on a leadership role in the university’s new Center for Justice Research and Policy (CJRP). 

The interdisciplinary, collaborative center, launched in January, is devoted to the study of social and criminal justice issues around the Tampa Bay region. Those lending their expertise to the center include faculty, researchers and scholars from the three USF campuses in Tampa, St. Petersburg and Sarasota-Manatee as well as community partners and leaders in local law enforcement. 

According to its website, the CJRP’s goal is to “apply rigorous research and evaluations to enhance the evidence base of policing, corrections and court practices.”

Liller said she was asked to be part of the leadership team by the center’s co-director, Dr. Edelyn Verona, a USF professor of psychology with whom she has collaborated before.

“I was selected, most likely, for my research and advocacy on gun-violence prevention, my work with law enforcement and the Florida Violent Death Reporting System [a data collection system exploring the details of violent deaths in the state], and for the development of the Activist Lab,” Liller said. The Activist Lab provides seminars, webinars, and other educational opportunities for students and faculty to learn public health advocacy skills and competencies.

The CJRP will focus on creating policy change and action. Liller said she hopes to contribute to its efforts by:

• Developing strategies that promote safe communities and policies that support gun violence prevention.
• Working to better understand the events surrounding violent deaths through the Florida Violent Death Reporting System.  
• Working with the center on advocacy issues related to the reduction of crime and incarceration.

The CJRP is being funded, in part, by a five-year, $1.2 million grant from the National Institute of Justice.

Story by Donna Campisano, USF College of Public Health

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On June 11, the USF College of Public Health’s (COPH) Activist Lab, in partnership with USF Health, hosted a gun violence prevention and advocacy presentation.

Speakers at the event were David Hogg and Emma González, two students who survived the February 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas (MSD) High School in Parkland, Fla. A gunman (and former student), using a semi-automatic rifle, shot and killed 17 students and staff at the school and injured 17 others.

Both Hogg and González—who’s best known for her battle cry “We call BS”—are advocates for gun violence prevention. They helped form MSD Never Again, a gun control advocacy group founded by MSD students. They also helped organize March for Our Lives, the largest single-day protest against gun violence in U.S. history. Last summer, they toured the country speaking about gun violence prevention.

“Before the shooting, I was interested in broadcast journalism,” said Hogg, who will enter Harvard University in the fall to study public health policy, American history and government. “I was interested in telling people’s stories. Now I tell the stories of people who aren’t here, like Joaquin Oliver, who died at my school. He fled Venezuela with his family to escape violence, only to be killed in his own classroom in what was thought to be the safest school in Florida.”

Their USF talk, attended by roughly 150 students, faculty, staff and the public, focused on reframing gun violence from a political issue into a public health one.

“Guns and cigarettes have much in common—they both kill a lot of people,” commented Hogg. “But one is on the decline. We didn’t do that by banning cigarettes, we did it by limiting the amount of nicotine in them to make them less addictive. Same with guns. We are not asking for a ban on guns, just to reduce the demand for them.”

González, a student of social justice and social activism at New College of Florida in Sarasota, agreed.

“We’re not fighting for guns to be taken away. We’re fighting for banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, for better background checks, for more funding for gun violence prevention. When we actually sit down and talk with some of the protestors at our events, we agree on a lot.”

Hogg noted that just as diseases cluster, so does gun violence. He showed the audience a slide with clusters of dots.  Red dots were shooting deaths; yellow dots were shooting injuries.

“Those aren’t dots, they’re people. They’re friends. They’re kids. They’re young people who wanted to go to college, to go anywhere and have a future,” said Hogg, who was wearing a “Save Your Friends” t-shirt. “But that was all taken away because of gun violence. Even though this is a public health issue, it has become a political one because people make money off it. The NRA has as much to do with gun violence in America as the tobacco companies have to do with lung cancer.”

Both Hogg and González argue that gun violence can only be ended with research and  interventions—things like bringing after-school programs to poorer communities, increasing access to grocery stores and making mental health care more affordable and accessible.

They urged the audience:

• To vote. “This is not a Republican or Democrat issue,” said Hogg. “It’s about electing morally just leaders. You need to vote for your survival.”
• Organize and attend town hall meetings on gun violence.
• Get involved in groups, protests and marches.
• Encourage the medical community to hand out gun locks to their patients, much like bike helmets are distributed.
• Get into gun violence prevention research.  “I’m not just here to speak, I’m here to recruit,” said Hogg, who noted there are only eight researchers currently studying gun violence prevention in the country. “In the next few years, funding won’t be the problem. It will be the lack of people qualified and motivated to do the job.”

Other takeaways:

• “Our efforts have been incredibly successful. Now candidates are running on gun violence prevention, not the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment and not having kids go through school shootings are not mutually exclusive.”—David Hogg
• Speaking on the issue of arming teachers in classrooms: “It’s like fighting fire with fire. More guns makes the fire bigger. It’s not safe.”—Emma González
• Commenting on the need for more accessible and affordable mental health care, especially after mass shootings: “Most schools in America have a plan for what to do if there’s an active shooter. We talk about how we’re going to make this door bulletproof. But we don’t talk about what happens after the event, mental health wise. We don’t talk about the trauma it will cause and how to prevent the suicides that will follow.”—David Hogg
• “We can think, ‘How would our lives be different if this thing [the Parkland shootings] didn’t happen?’ But there are other things that have happened that are also really traumatizing and impactful. You have to roll with the punches you’re served.”—Emma González

In closing Hogg told the audience, “As a human being and an American, I choose to love rather than hate. I choose to fight for something, rather than solely against it. We may not be the generation to end gun violence, but we can be the first generation to take a step toward the finish line.”

Story by Donna Campisano, USF College of Public Health

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