Reggie Wong Memorial Park was recently featured in an article written by BU students exploring pollution in Chinatown. The park is set to be renovated in the near future to be greener and more inviting. Photo by Ariana Bista (SPH’26)

Public Health

Global Health Storytelling Course Brings Journalism and Public Health Students Together

Class collaborates on multimedia stories exploring the intersection of climate change, environmental justice, and public health

What does a journalism student have in common with a public health student? 

At first glance, not much. One tells stories and breaks news, while the other studies data and population health. But these students work toward a common goal: helping people understand issues that affect their lives.

The interdisciplinary Global Health Storytelling class pairs public health and journalism students to produce multimedia stories about public health challenges in Boston and surrounding communities. The class is cotaught by Jennifer Beard, a School of Public Health clinical professor of global health, and David Abel, a College of Communication professor of the practice of journalism.

“It’s this opportunity to get students from SPH and students from COM in the same room together with a professor from each school, so that we can share our fields with one another,” Beard says. 

For Beard, the connection between the two disciplines is natural: both seek to inform the public and improve people’s quality of life. However, public health tends to operate “at a very population level,” whereas journalism focuses on the individual, she says. “I think students from the School of Public Health are learning to break through some of the technical jargon that they’ve become used to,” Beard says, “and really get into the human aspects of public health.”

Since its inception in 2018, each cohort of Global Health Storytelling has looked a little different. This spring semester, the goal was for students to tell a story about a person whose life has been affected by climate change. Abel says focusing on individual experiences helps make climate change more tangible for readers. “Climate change is not some distant abstract threat,” he says, “but one that very much is a clear and present danger, affecting people not just in distant places that you might read about, but also right here in Boston.”

One reporting pair, Ariana Bista (SPH’26) and Maddie Bockus (COM’27), produced a narrative journalism piece about pollution and climate crises in Boston’s Chinatown. Their article, which included data, maps, and photos of Chinatown, examines the neighborhood’s long history of environmental inequities, such as a lack of green space, and pollution and urban heat. The students report that Chinatown is Boston’s hottest neighborhood, and one of its most densely populated, where its residents call for “community-backed solutions such as cooling centers, misting tents, and more trees,” according to their article. At the center of the story is a Chinatown resident whose experiences illustrate the community’s challenges and who works today to enact change. 

Seeing that neither student was from the area, Bista and Bockus say building trust with the Chinatown residents was an essential part of the reporting process. The pair started off conducting street interviews, but found greater success by meeting with community members, who then connected them with additional sources. “It was really helpful to build relationships and build trust, and then let those relationships lead you to new sources and new stories and connections,” Bockus says. 

For Ikatari Swope (SPH’27), who covered environmental injustice in Chelsea, forming relationships was equally as important as the reporting process. Swope and her partner, Kallejhay Terrelonge (COM’27), spent weeks following a Chelsea resident to understand how exposure to pollution affects daily life. Being empathetic, patient, and continually asking for consent to interview them were keys to earning their source’s trust, Swope says.

While environmental injustice is often linked to dramatic or catastrophic events, such as the California wildfires, Swope says many of its effects are far less visible. “Environmental injustice [is] not always acute—it’s chronic,” Swope says. “I think that’s why people overlook certain things, like the importance of having a lot of trees in your neighborhood, or what color your concrete is.” 

Despite witnessing firsthand the environmental challenges of their neighborhoods, Global Health Storytelling students say they were struck by residents’ efforts to effect change. 

“There’s a lot of negativity [out there], but it’s not all doom and gloom,” Bista says. “There’s remarkable resilience and hope that’s being shown in these communities.”