Translational Humanities for Public Health is a project that identifies and disseminates humanities-based (and humanities-inspired) responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. We document these creative efforts to help others benefit from them, and to bring tools for understanding the human experience to communities in need of support during this time of crisis. We developed a survey in the spring and summer of 2020 seeking to capture all kinds of pandemic responses that involve some dimension of the humanities, and we are particularly interested in “translational humanities” approaches. We have received hundreds of responses, and we will continue to update and expand this site as new information comes in.
We are keen to expand the global scope of our work, and we encourage anyone with a relevant project to contribute to this site using the "Add Your Project" link below. Use the menu items above to explore the database by humanities field, location, audience, and project output, or use the "Search" bar to find a specific project.
The NIH National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) defines translation as “the scientific process by which observations in the laboratory, clinic and community are turned into interventions that improve the health of individuals and the public — from diagnostics and therapeutics to medical procedures and behavioral changes.” We believe that the humanities offer unique and critically important insights, observations, and methods that can improve the human condition and help alleviate suffering in our pandemic response. For this reason, we embrace the concept of translational humanities and seek to improve health by balancing out the technological and biomedical responses to the crisis. We hope that visitors can use this site to learn how to bring translational humanities methods into their own fields of practice.