Plenary 4: Media, Information, Science, and Health Literacy: Information Ecosystems Challenges for Health Educators in the 21st Century

Elaine Hicks, MS/LIS, MPH, MCHES merged three occupations into the work of a public health librarian: nutrition educator, public health educator and librarian. A recent product of this body of knowledge and skills was the creation of the Librarian Reserve Corps, a mash-up of public health emergency preparedness training and library/information science needed to catalog the avalanche of daily scientific publication distributed by the WHO library to the Global Outreak Alert and Response Network.

Tina D Purnat is a Doctor of Public Health student and Prajna Leadership Fellow at TH Chan School of Public Health at Harvard University. Her DrPH studies focus on improving services to vulnerable and at-risk communities experiencing social, commercial, economic and health information inequities and barriers to health and wellbeing. Tina is an accomplished health informatician whose global footprint spans over two decades of public health work. She has worked across academia, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the frontlines of public health organizations, consistently pushing the boundaries of health information and evidence, digital public health, AI technologies, and addressing health misinformation. Tina believes modernizing the business of public health means integrating cutting-edge technology and human-centered approaches to solving the world’s most wicked problems. She is a sought-after conference speaker and academic lecturer, especially in health misinformation and AI for health.