NASW Social Work Talks: Kristina Whiton-O’Brien (SSW’95) Discusses Vot-ER, Social Work, & Civic Health
In a recent interview for “Social Work Talks,” the National Association for Social Workers’s podcast, Kristina Whiton-O’Brien (SSW’95) discussed the tools that Vot-ER is providing to social workers and health care providers to promote better civic health. Whiton-O’Brien is a BU School of Social Work alumna, and former assistant director of online advising and field education for the School.
Excerpt from “Voter Registration with Vot-ER,” with interview by Greg Wright:
There’s actually research that shows that the healthier you are, the more likely you are to cast a ballot. It actually shows that voting can make people healthier. We at Vot-ER are really wanting to improve the health of our communities, improve the health of individuals in our communities, and see that healthcare professionals, healthcare providers, have a role in civic engagement, civic health engagement, and talking to patients about voting…
When talking with Dr. Martin, who started Vot-ER, he tells stories about patients who come into the emergency room who maybe are there not because of an urgent medical issue, but because they are inadequately housed or they’re food insecure or they’re having physical symptoms related to their diabetes because they’re rationing their insulin because they can’t afford the copays. Those are the types of things that happen as part of those social determinants of health that he was seeing in the emergency room.
He actually talks about being inspired to address voter registration with a patient because of advice from a social worker. He was working with a patient who was in the emergency room because she and her children didn’t have anywhere to sleep in the winter. She admitted to him and he was working with a social worker around what to do to try and get her housing for the evening. The social worker said, ‘Well, one way that we can establish residency for her to get her into transitional housing is by registering her to vote.’”
Listen to the full podcast here.
Read the transcript of the podcast here.