Healthscapes at UMICH

Twitter account for Professor Beza Merid's Healthscapes course. Department of Communication Studies, University of Michigan. Tweets by @bezamerid.

[Healthscapes at UMICH @The_Healthscape]

For their final papers, students had to imagine/articulate a health activism strategy to be carried out via the healthscape; the final results were great! I’m really proud of the care they put into this work & all they accomplished. All told, it was a great term!

[Healthscapes at UMICH @The_Healthscape]

A very belated summary of how the semester ended: after discussing health activism, we read/discussed health policy documents explaining how insurers dealt w/ pre-existing conditions before & after the ACA, and how/why patients & caregivers rely on medical bill crowdfunding sites

[Healthscapes at UMICH @The_Healthscape]

We closed the class with a discussion of Jimmy Kimmel’s health care monologues, which gave us a chance to consider the work of health activism and the promotion of health equity as a collective obligation.

[Thad Mantaro, Ph.D. @ThadMantaro]

A cool idea at the intersection of tech, ed, and social determinants of health. #LiveWellTWU @txwomans @WellbeingTWU

[Healthscapes at UMICH @The_Healthscape]

We're now in our final unit, discussing storytelling around health insurance concerns. We began yesterday with a discussion of health activism, considering the benefits of education-based approaches and resistance-based approaches, & the importance of other-directed actions 9/9

[Healthscapes at UMICH @The_Healthscape]

Thread: We continued our health and digital media unit by discussing @KirstenOstherr's contribution to the @catalyst_sts themed issue @tamigraph & I co-edited. We discussed datafication & Hugo Campos, and considered illness narratives as a genre of personal health data (cont) 1/9

[Healthscapes at UMICH @The_Healthscape]

where he discussed his diagnosis with young children. Some students wondered about whether such a conversation was age appropriate, and then we watched a clip where Magic spoke with a child living with HIV. Really helped to illustrate the importance of working through stigma 8/9

[Healthscapes at UMICH @The_Healthscape]

Thread

[Peter Kaufman @PeterKaufmanSOC]

What Do I Want to Do Before I Die?

Microburst Twitter Essay #7?

This is my last microburst Twitter essay and last Twitter posts. And most personal. I hope you enjoy them.
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[Healthscapes at UMICH @The_Healthscape]

We will DEFINITELY be discussing this in class in our upcoming unit about talking about illness in public

[philip lewis @Phil_Lewis_]

Michelle Obama on her miscarriage 20 years ago: “I think it’s important to talk to young mothers about the fact that miscarriages happen.”

[Healthscapes at UMICH @The_Healthscape]

Finally, yesterday we discussed the practice of self-tracking & Natasha Dow Schull’s “Data for Life,” and then I had students generate ideas for patient-centered digital interventions (app, website, etc). Really great work!

[Healthscapes at UMICH @The_Healthscape]

Last Wed, students presented their fantastic midterm group projects. They were asked to examine a media object in the biomedicalization #healthscape and consider how it communicated notions of disease risk and personal responsibility for health.

[Healthscapes at UMICH @The_Healthscape]

On Monday we discussed networked patient communities & the emergence of the post-mastectomy tattoo as an alternative/addition to breast reconstruction. Here we drew on the great article Reisa Klein contributed to the themed issue of @catalyst_sts that @tamigraph & I co-edited