Tewksbury's Public Health Museum Awarded $10,000 Grant

Press release from the Tewksbury Public Health Museum:

The Public Health Museum in Tewksbury is pleased to announce that it has been awarded a $10,000 grant from the Network of the National Library of Medicine New England Region (NNLM NER) for its Community Outreach efforts. The Public Health Museum is honored to have been chosen as a recipient for the third year in a row, and will bring its immersive student public health program Outbreak! free of charge to rising 11 th and 12 th grade students. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Museum decided to move to an online format, thus extending the program immediately to students across the region.

“We are very pleased to bring Outbreak!2020 to students in a virtual format,” said Public Health Museum president Dr. Katherine Domoto. “We’re able to reach students from all over New England and actually increase participation in the program by developing online presentations.”

Aspects of the program, such as field trips to the state lab in Jamaica Plain will now be handled as a virtual tour with the focus on maintaining the interactive aspects between students and presenters. Students will additionally participate in live Q&A sessions with public health professionals, collaborate with peer mentors and learn about the breadth of careers in the public health field.

“Public health has never been more squarely in the collective conscience than at this time,” said Domoto.

Adding this technical approach to the Museum will expand their outreach to other audiences as part of their growing community partnership activities and educational mission.

The program manager, Tonya Urquizo, said, "The Museum will now offer virtual tours and host events for our members who might not otherwise be able to join in person. Working alongside our partners, such as the NLM, Tewksbury Public Library, Lowell Community Health Center, and the MA State Public Health Laboratory helps us expand the public health perspective to our members and public."

Since 1994, The Public Health Museum in Tewksbury, on the campus of Tewksbury Hospital, has sought to celebrate the history and achievements of public health. As the first museum in the nation dedicated to public health, the museum seeks to preserve the past, inspire future practitioners, educate the public, and advance the future of public health through partnerships with academic institutions and outreach to the public.

The Network of the National Library of Medicine (NNLM) has been a center of information innovation since its founding in 1836. The world’s largest biomedical library, NLM maintains and makes available a vast print collection and produces electronic information resources on a wide range of topics that are searched billions of times each year by millions of people around the globe.

For more information about the museum, visit www.publichealthmuseum.org

For more information about the Network of the National Library of Medicine, visit www.nlm.nih.gov

This press release was produced by the Public Health Museum. The views expressed are the author's own.