Great Plains Covid-19 Stories
Center for Great Plains STudies
Author
11/10/2022
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34
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Description
The Center recently provided support to five projects aiming to gather stories on the impact of Covid-19 on the people of the region focused on those disproportionately affected by the pandemic, including Latinx, new mothers, Indigenous communities, and immigrant communities as well as workers from the healthcare and meatpacking fields. Panelists shared stories from community members affected by Covid-19 in this discussion.
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- [00:00:00.261]So I begin every event we do here
- [00:00:03.060]with a land acknowledgement,
- [00:00:04.320]and I'm gonna do that
- [00:00:05.368]even though we're a small group.
- [00:00:07.950]So, the Center for Great Plain Studies
- [00:00:10.320]is part of the University of Nebraska,
- [00:00:12.210]and it's four campuses,
- [00:00:13.980]land grant institution,
- [00:00:15.840]and we have campuses and programs
- [00:00:17.520]on the past, present, and future homelands
- [00:00:20.460]of the Pawnee, Ponca, Otoe Missouria,
- [00:00:23.610]Omaha, yay, Omaha!
- [00:00:28.228]Dakota, Lakota, Kansa,
- [00:00:30.510]Cheyenne, and Arapaho Peoples,
- [00:00:32.910]as well as those of the relocated Ho-Chunk,
- [00:00:35.307]Sac and Fox and Iowa peoples.
- [00:00:38.460]The land we currently call Nebraska
- [00:00:40.230]has always been and will continue to be
- [00:00:41.970]an indigenous homeland.
- [00:00:44.250]And please take a moment to consider the legacies
- [00:00:46.740]of more than 150 years of displacement,
- [00:00:49.467]violence, settlement, and survival that bring us here today.
- [00:00:56.967]So, for those of you who don't know,
- [00:01:00.350]in 2020,
- [00:01:02.310]the Center decided
- [00:01:04.200]that we wanted to fund projects
- [00:01:07.470]among faculty and,
- [00:01:09.837]and also in Nebraska Indian Community College
- [00:01:12.360]or, or other Indian community colleges
- [00:01:15.268]that would give us more understanding
- [00:01:19.320]of what the pandemic has meant to us on the Great Plains.
- [00:01:23.070]And we wanted particularly to support research
- [00:01:27.030]about residents on the Great Plains
- [00:01:29.670]who have been disproportionately affected by COVID.
- [00:01:34.140]And, one of the reasons we wanted to do this panel,
- [00:01:37.750]is so you can see these, this portraiture,
- [00:01:40.500]is a project in the museum by Mike Farrell,
- [00:01:44.160]a local photographer
- [00:01:45.960]who took these portraits of people during COVID
- [00:01:49.920]in this kind of old school sepia tone style.
- [00:01:53.640]And so we thought this would be a great backdrop
- [00:01:55.770]for having a discussion
- [00:01:57.510]about COVID and what it has meant on the Great Plains.
- [00:02:01.920]And so we're really,
- [00:02:03.662]you know, excited to hear about what you've done
- [00:02:06.331]in the last couple years,
- [00:02:08.220]what you've found out in your projects,
- [00:02:11.400]and now we can have this kind of more informal conversation.
- [00:02:15.899]So we've got from UNL
- [00:02:21.120]Christian Dona-Reveco
- [00:02:22.950]and Isabelle Beulaygue
- [00:02:26.923]and from UNL'S College of Education and Human Sciences,
- [00:02:30.090]we have Amanda Morales.
- [00:02:32.759]We have Becky Buller
- [00:02:34.019]from the UNL
- [00:02:35.430]School of Integrative, Global Integrative Studies,
- [00:02:40.013]and Trevor Kauer
- [00:02:41.067]from the UNL Department of Communication Studies
- [00:02:43.860]and up,
- [00:02:48.709]Wynema Morris
- [00:02:49.788]from Nebraska Indian Community College.
- [00:02:52.770]And so welcome all of you.
- [00:02:54.540]We're gonna kind of go in that order, but-
- [00:02:57.810]Perfect.
- [00:02:58.643]It works for me.
- [00:03:00.458]So, thanks first of all for the invitation.
- [00:03:04.500]It's a pleasure to be here.
- [00:03:06.030]And, and we were very happy
- [00:03:08.040]and very appreciative of the,
- [00:03:11.610]the grant that we got
- [00:03:13.245]and help us work with the interviews that we have now
- [00:03:15.660]and some that we are still getting.
- [00:03:20.100]We began working on this in May of 2020.
- [00:03:24.711]We were invited by the University of Texas at Austin
- [00:03:27.990]to be part of a collaborative project
- [00:03:30.120]called Voces of Pandemic
- [00:03:32.130]that is held at the Voces Oral History Center at UT Austin.
- [00:03:36.390]There's several universities,
- [00:03:38.640]several in Texas,
- [00:03:39.480]but also North Illinois University and,
- [00:03:42.627]and others
- [00:03:43.860]that we're working on,
- [00:03:45.390]on collecting oral histories of Latinos during the pandemic.
- [00:03:49.250]And this is all ways of life,
- [00:03:51.702]you know, medicine,
- [00:03:54.990]essential workers.
- [00:03:57.090]In our case
- [00:03:58.590]early on, our,
- [00:04:00.240]most of our interviews were with community leaders
- [00:04:03.480]and then we expanded to a few other people.
- [00:04:05.940]But we were able to get 24 interviews
- [00:04:08.910]from July, 2020 to March of 2022.
- [00:04:13.080]18 of them were women, six men, as I said,
- [00:04:15.990]mostly executive directors of community organizations,
- [00:04:18.953]but also community leaders, religious leaders and others.
- [00:04:23.640]And we have a lot of material,
- [00:04:25.380]We have a lot of really wonderful material
- [00:04:28.680]on several topics.
- [00:04:29.670]But we, one,
- [00:04:31.080]one that we are working right now
- [00:04:32.550]is we're analyzing the interviews that we have
- [00:04:35.830]from a perspective of sociology of emotion,
- [00:04:39.270]which is a very old perspective in sociology.
- [00:04:41.307]Very old, very new.
- [00:04:43.358]It's at the roots of sociology,
- [00:04:45.360]but it has been recuperated in the last few years.
- [00:04:48.450]And we're using what is called thematic analysis,
- [00:04:50.340]which is basically just
- [00:04:52.650]looking for themes across
- [00:04:55.611]that go across all the interviews and,
- [00:04:57.537]and Isabelle is gonna present
- [00:04:59.834]the more interesting part,
- [00:05:01.740]which are the results that we have right now.
- [00:05:04.080]Yes. Thank you very much Christian,
- [00:05:05.819]So as Christina mentioned
- [00:05:07.948]from our thematic analysis,
- [00:05:09.870]we have uncovered four themes
- [00:05:11.760]that are salient in the data.
- [00:05:14.730]And the first one is
- [00:05:17.160]the idea of institutional and linguistic alienation
- [00:05:20.490]that people have experienced in Nebraska.
- [00:05:23.460]And that is buffered by collective efficacy.
- [00:05:27.210]So it's the idea that
- [00:05:28.800]folks are alienated in these different ways,
- [00:05:31.440]but there are coping mechanisms
- [00:05:33.990]and buffering mechanisms
- [00:05:35.310]that help them kind of like surmount
- [00:05:37.259]these adversities.
- [00:05:39.360]And collective efficacy is one of these ways.
- [00:05:42.480]The second theme is labor based alienation,
- [00:05:45.390]which was buffered by organizational social support.
- [00:05:48.510]So that is more seen in the context, for example,
- [00:05:51.296]as we're all familiar with,
- [00:05:53.190]with the meat packing plants,
- [00:05:54.510]or in the workplace,
- [00:05:56.520]what was happening
- [00:05:57.780]and social support was really what helped
- [00:06:01.080]people get together and surmount these difficulties.
- [00:06:04.530]The third one, and this is really,
- [00:06:07.082]emotions get, you know,
- [00:06:08.747]are at the heart of all these,
- [00:06:10.260]but really here in physical and emotional alienation,
- [00:06:13.736]this is really the idea that people were separated
- [00:06:17.190]and hurting during the pandemic.
- [00:06:19.770]And this was buffered,
- [00:06:20.820]you know, in part by technology and social media.
- [00:06:23.790]As you know, our colleague was mentioning, you know,
- [00:06:26.460]these new ways of communicating with each other
- [00:06:29.010]are really what, you know, it was suboptimal for many,
- [00:06:32.850]but it helped many others.
- [00:06:35.081]And finally,
- [00:06:36.300]our theme number four was
- [00:06:38.550]this idea of immigrant geographic alienation, right?
- [00:06:41.520]Buffered by faith and intergenerational closure,
- [00:06:45.150]in a nutshell. And you know,
- [00:06:46.980]my colleague here is geographer might, you know,
- [00:06:49.440]really develop on that later,
- [00:06:51.900]but immigrants are already geographically separated
- [00:06:55.500]in many ways from what they call their homeland,
- [00:06:58.800]their, their,
- [00:06:59.633]their, their home, their families in different countries.
- [00:07:02.460]And so there's this, these layers of alienation,
- [00:07:04.851]the geographic one that already exists
- [00:07:06.900]by way of being an immigrant.
- [00:07:08.010]And then, you know,
- [00:07:10.284]COVID.
- [00:07:11.177]And so that was buffered by faith,
- [00:07:12.900]families, and intergenerational closure.
- [00:07:15.060]So I'm going to show you now,
- [00:07:16.350]I'm gonna go ahead and
- [00:07:17.370]we will show you now a couple of examples
- [00:07:19.740]from the data of these themes.
- [00:07:22.500]So this quote is from Guadalupe Sanchez Salazar,
- [00:07:25.740]the Consulate General of Mexico.
- [00:07:27.810]And this quote is what gives our, you know, our,
- [00:07:30.570]the research we're working on its title.
- [00:07:32.610]Here, families like we, Mexicans and Latinos in general,
- [00:07:36.090]they come here with their spouses and children,
- [00:07:38.250]and everyone wants to be together.
- [00:07:40.680]And this part of the pandemic
- [00:07:42.300]is that part that personally has hurt me the most.
- [00:07:46.050]Besides the millions of lives lost,
- [00:07:48.780]it's not being able to be close to the people
- [00:07:51.030]to give each other a hug, not being able to say hi,
- [00:07:53.938]because we, Mexicans and Latinos, generally speaking,
- [00:07:57.390]we're people of contact.
- [00:07:59.670]In Spanish,
- [00:08:00.503](speaking Spanish)
- [00:08:01.530]So families show up here at the consulate together
- [00:08:05.100]and when they enter,
- [00:08:06.120]they have to respect the six feet, or two meter separation,
- [00:08:09.540]even if they're from the same family.
- [00:08:13.350]You know.
- [00:08:14.183]So here you can see this physical and emotional distancing
- [00:08:17.760]that we call alienation,
- [00:08:20.128]that is called alienation.
- [00:08:23.010]And our second quote is by attorney Rosana Cortez,
- [00:08:29.129]who's an immigration attorney
- [00:08:30.690]who's gonna talk about social capital
- [00:08:33.030]and how that, you know,
- [00:08:34.951]intergenerational closure,
- [00:08:37.247]buffered the effects of alienation,
- [00:08:39.780]to give you a little moment of contact,
- [00:08:41.700]her father is a meat packing plant worker,
- [00:08:44.760]and he got really, really sick with COVID.
- [00:08:46.647]But the family did not necessarily have the resources
- [00:08:49.351]to understand the treatment
- [00:08:51.120]or what was going on in the hospital.
- [00:08:52.740]But thanks to one of, you know,
- [00:08:54.480]her friends that the family knew from childhood
- [00:08:57.000]and that spoke English and that trusted, you know,
- [00:08:59.940]the doctors and everybody, they were able to get, you know,
- [00:09:02.340]the treatment and the help that they needed.
- [00:09:05.070]So it says
- [00:09:06.600]we didn't have the information about what this drug is,
- [00:09:09.195]and my head wasn't there to ask those questions
- [00:09:12.000]when I called
- [00:09:12.833]we've been very lucky again
- [00:09:14.160]that I have a friend who's a doctor
- [00:09:16.110]who I went to school with and I texted him,
- [00:09:18.120]I said, hey, can you tell me what this drug does
- [00:09:20.807]and so, because I had called
- [00:09:23.100]and left a message with the doctor,
- [00:09:24.480]but they're busy,
- [00:09:25.920]they're not gonna give you a call right away.
- [00:09:27.931]And my friend gave me some information.
- [00:09:30.570]My mom knows my friend,
- [00:09:32.130]we went to college together and he came,
- [00:09:34.560]he and my other friends came to my parents' house
- [00:09:36.480]all the time.
- [00:09:37.313]So she trusts him.
- [00:09:39.060]So I told her the information that he gave me,
- [00:09:41.790]then the doctor called, gave us some information.
- [00:09:44.970]My mom was now okay.
- [00:09:47.400]Right?
- [00:09:48.233]So it's like the people we know,
- [00:09:50.160]social capital
- [00:09:51.188]and the information, and the flexible resources that,
- [00:09:55.387]you know, they can help us with
- [00:09:57.750]are so important in, you know,
- [00:10:00.300]immigrant circles,
- [00:10:01.460]in in the healthcare context specifically.
- [00:10:03.980]So.
- [00:10:07.260]Those are just two examples of, of
- [00:10:09.390]the hours and hours of, of recording.
- [00:10:12.155]I assume you all have. We all have.
- [00:10:15.228]And now we,
- [00:10:18.150]at the same time that we're doing this,
- [00:10:19.946]I got a call from a member of community,
- [00:10:22.770]asked me to do a research
- [00:10:24.642]on the impact of COVID Latino on businesses.
- [00:10:27.360]This was about a year ago.
- [00:10:28.740]And we did a survey
- [00:10:30.235]and we got the results and from that survey,
- [00:10:32.580]but the next stage
- [00:10:33.810]is actually interviewing these business owners.
- [00:10:36.210]So we are using the same kind of questions,
- [00:10:39.060]the same structure that we use for
- [00:10:41.278]the Voces of Pandemic, with the business owners,
- [00:10:45.080]so that we're gonna have a different perspective on,
- [00:10:47.640]on the impact of COVID.
- [00:10:50.715]Hopefully we'll get that done in the next few months.
- [00:10:54.126]From our different project
- [00:10:56.190]that I had been meaning to start a while ago,
- [00:10:59.370]but now I have the people and the places where we can do it.
- [00:11:02.746]We are interviewing Latina head of households.
- [00:11:07.530]We know that women are stronger than men
- [00:11:10.500]and Latina women who live on their own
- [00:11:12.420]are significantly stronger
- [00:11:13.560]and have to deal with a lot of stuff.
- [00:11:15.600]So the idea is to interview them
- [00:11:17.370]and my, one of my colleagues in the community
- [00:11:21.150]is working more, more on topics of leadership.
- [00:11:23.423]We are, I'm talking,
- [00:11:25.260]we're working on topics of resilience and
- [00:11:28.318]you know, being, being a head of household.
- [00:11:31.230]So we are doing more interviews as well,
- [00:11:34.002]focus on, you know,
- [00:11:36.175]using the same mythology but on a different project
- [00:11:39.090]that will bring also more information to this.
- [00:11:42.210]All the interviews, the ones that, the 24 that we have,
- [00:11:45.270]plus the ones that we are starting to do right now,
- [00:11:48.169]are being each archived at the archive,
- [00:11:53.760]the Chris Library, you know,
- [00:11:56.160]some of them are already available online,
- [00:11:58.488]either through the Voces Project
- [00:12:00.123]or through the, or through the
- [00:12:05.390]Chris Library as well.
- [00:12:08.057]And this has led to, you know,
- [00:12:09.810]thinking about all their projects,
- [00:12:13.799]but not yet.
- [00:12:15.199]We haven't at this moment.
- [00:12:17.340]So that's us so far.
- [00:12:20.430]Thank you.
- [00:12:21.263]Hey, good evening again everyone.
- [00:12:23.949]So it's actually quite nice to go after,
- [00:12:28.524]after your presentation and the, the narratives that,
- [00:12:31.923]that you are uncovering
- [00:12:35.070]given where we live,
- [00:12:36.870]meat packers and the ripple effect
- [00:12:40.020]of how COVID impacted people working at the plants
- [00:12:43.740]and their children, and their grandchildren,
- [00:12:46.830]and their larger families and communities.
- [00:12:49.483]The kind of layers,
- [00:12:53.040]or concentric rings of separation are not all that,
- [00:12:57.403]any one of us could name probably four people
- [00:13:00.210]that we know that have a member,
- [00:13:02.481]a friend, or a family member
- [00:13:04.620]that works in a plant
- [00:13:06.099]or has some connection.
- [00:13:08.850]So given where we live
- [00:13:10.800]and who we are in the Midwest,
- [00:13:12.630]in Nebraska, this is a really important topic.
- [00:13:16.650]And so I appreciate your study and the,
- [00:13:19.673]the narratives that you've found.
- [00:13:21.292]Our, our, I'm one of three on this project.
- [00:13:26.117]Ted Hamann is the PI, was the lead PI on the project,
- [00:13:30.660]and Dr. Ricardo Martinez,
- [00:13:32.700]who has since left UNL.
- [00:13:34.677]We, for this project,
- [00:13:36.600]we hit one roadblock after another, after another,
- [00:13:39.060]but it's finally happening, so, anyway,
- [00:13:42.117]this is my dear friend
- [00:13:43.440]and I'm thrilled to represent our,
- [00:13:45.540]our project tonight.
- [00:13:48.000]So our, our study was quite small in comparison.
- [00:13:53.760]We were seeking out funding for a handful of oral histories
- [00:13:59.100]to be collected from those individuals
- [00:14:03.450]who are themselves meat packers
- [00:14:05.445]or who have family members who are packers
- [00:14:09.270]and primarily Latino x community members.
- [00:14:14.460]And so our lead participant
- [00:14:16.230]and really our community connection is
- [00:14:19.620]Ms. Maira Mendez Rodriguez.
- [00:14:21.690]And she is an associate principal at Lincoln High School.
- [00:14:24.960]I don't know if you know her,
- [00:14:26.579]she is our only oral history thus far, actually collected.
- [00:14:31.980]However, gratefully,
- [00:14:34.320]she has been willing to kind of help us
- [00:14:36.930]negotiate relationships
- [00:14:38.583]and finding just the right
- [00:14:42.176]participants to, to engage in this way
- [00:14:45.750]has been interesting and I'll, I'll get to why that is.
- [00:14:49.021]But as of right now,
- [00:14:50.880]the adults that are participating is really two clusters.
- [00:14:54.564]One is a family from Creek, Nebraska.
- [00:14:57.280]It is an adult child who identifies as
- [00:15:00.570]what we would describe as 1.5.
- [00:15:03.000]So she was born outside the United States,
- [00:15:04.666]but essentially raised here,
- [00:15:06.480]and the child of a first gen immigrant mother,
- [00:15:10.710]who just recently retired from the plant.
- [00:15:14.610]And then the next cluster is from Grand Island.
- [00:15:17.129]And again, a gen 1.5 adult child
- [00:15:20.520]and her first gen parents,
- [00:15:23.850]and the mother is the one that worked at the plant
- [00:15:27.180]and has also just recently retired.
- [00:15:29.490]And that theme is really important
- [00:15:31.320]given what we're talking about, and kind of the,
- [00:15:33.807]the risks associated with talking candidly
- [00:15:37.080]about their experience.
- [00:15:38.340]And then the other piece of this, this,
- [00:15:40.741]this project that's been very cool
- [00:15:43.500]is given another batch of work that we're doing
- [00:15:46.200]with immigrant migrant and refugee youth.
- [00:15:49.881]There is a,
- [00:15:51.030]a whole host of young people in South Sioux City
- [00:15:54.390]that we're working with as part of
- [00:15:55.950]a youth participatory action research project.
- [00:15:59.670]And as they learned about this project
- [00:16:02.280]and the experiences with COVID,
- [00:16:04.440]they wanted to share their story.
- [00:16:06.300]It's like excellent. Okay, excellent.
- [00:16:09.630]And so that is the, the next phase that,
- [00:16:13.627]and we haven't, we gotta work out
- [00:16:15.960]to make sure that we've got the funds.
- [00:16:17.550]It will either be four or six participants,
- [00:16:19.830]four to six participants.
- [00:16:22.080]And so some of the prompts that we used,
- [00:16:24.270]as you know with oral histories,
- [00:16:26.130]they're intended to be very organic and,
- [00:16:28.260]and flexible based on
- [00:16:29.970]the meandering narratives of the participants.
- [00:16:34.290]These are just some of the prompts though,
- [00:16:36.030]I wanted to share that
- [00:16:36.863]so you've got a flavor
- [00:16:38.070]for what it is they were thinking about.
- [00:16:40.170]We wanted them to think about
- [00:16:41.520]what they remembered about that time, what they felt,
- [00:16:45.360]what were their worries, what were their concerns,
- [00:16:48.893]what can they recount from those experiences,
- [00:16:52.680]both personally and professionally.
- [00:16:55.290]We also wanted to know
- [00:16:57.515]what narratives or stories they wished people knew about
- [00:17:01.794]given the time that's passed.
- [00:17:04.590]Like what are the enduring things that you would like the
- [00:17:06.900]world to know, or the community to know
- [00:17:09.060]about the experience that you had
- [00:17:11.220]at that time?
- [00:17:12.540]And then what advice might you give to others
- [00:17:15.517]in a similar situation
- [00:17:17.550]or those dealing with working conditions today
- [00:17:21.120]and that you'll see why that is salient.
- [00:17:24.930]So the initial findings from Maira's story
- [00:17:28.020]that were powerful, there were so many,
- [00:17:30.450]I could have talked to her literally for a day.
- [00:17:33.510]She talked about,
- [00:17:35.190]she painted this beautiful picture
- [00:17:36.840]of the uncertainties and frustration
- [00:17:40.200]that she had with the lack of information,
- [00:17:42.529]the lack of response, the mixed messages.
- [00:17:46.320]She talked about how often
- [00:17:48.733]there was misinformation
- [00:17:51.000]and that she felt like they were trying to paint it
- [00:17:53.610]as if they were, look,
- [00:17:54.780]look at all the things that we're doing
- [00:17:56.610]to ensure that our workers are safe.
- [00:17:59.876]And then when she would hear what was really going on
- [00:18:02.430]from her parents, 'cause both of her parents
- [00:18:04.496]work at the plant,
- [00:18:05.820]they've since retired,
- [00:18:07.251]she found out that it was not at all
- [00:18:09.480]the way that it was being painted.
- [00:18:11.488]She talked about the generational differences
- [00:18:13.920]that she felt
- [00:18:15.210]because her parents would say things like,
- [00:18:17.980]yeah, I gotta go to work.
- [00:18:19.410]I can't not work.
- [00:18:20.640]I have to work.
- [00:18:21.719]We'll figure it out.
- [00:18:23.280]I don't know, we'll figure it out.
- [00:18:24.750]Right?
- [00:18:25.583]And, kind of not really knowing
- [00:18:28.380]what it was and how serious it was.
- [00:18:31.050]And she recounts a story of her father's,
- [00:18:33.930]one of her father's dear friends
- [00:18:36.000]when he got COVID and got very, very sick.
- [00:18:38.820]It's like the reality, the waves of, of fear
- [00:18:41.870]hit home for her parents for the first time.
- [00:18:44.730]And then they understood why she was so worried for them.
- [00:18:48.090]She talked about the guilt
- [00:18:51.418]that she experiences
- [00:18:52.677]and has her whole life
- [00:18:54.060]as a child of an immigrant
- [00:18:55.980]with her parents working in the meat packing plant
- [00:18:57.900]and her being educated and working in an off,
- [00:19:00.870]she's a teacher, a principal,
- [00:19:02.940]she works in school district
- [00:19:04.140]and she had this time off,
- [00:19:05.730]her employer respected her
- [00:19:07.394]and you know, wanted her to stay safe.
- [00:19:10.050]So she was home isolating.
- [00:19:12.123]Meanwhile, her parents are working
- [00:19:14.059]double shifts with terrible conditions.
- [00:19:17.430]They're speeding up the line
- [00:19:18.600]to make up for lost time.
- [00:19:20.643]She said that that the guilt was pretty overwhelming
- [00:19:24.060]and that that's what urged her to advocate, to do something.
- [00:19:27.570]And then she described her experiences
- [00:19:29.400]around grassroots organizing
- [00:19:31.223]and the development of the documentary called
- [00:19:34.410]Children of Smithfield.
- [00:19:36.060]I'm not sure how familiar you are with that documentary,
- [00:19:40.050]but it was definitely a grassroots effort.
- [00:19:43.110]Then she talked about this,
- [00:19:44.340]this really powerful tension she experienced
- [00:19:47.498]related to her advocacy
- [00:19:49.620]and the other children of the packing workers,
- [00:19:52.980]meat packing workers.
- [00:19:54.420]And how they were telling her,
- [00:19:55.980]take that post down.
- [00:19:57.648]We're gonna seem ungrateful,
- [00:20:00.228]we're gonna seem like we don't wanna work.
- [00:20:03.210]We have to be careful.
- [00:20:05.640]And then she talked about how important it was
- [00:20:08.310]for her to navigate that
- [00:20:09.870]and negotiate that tension
- [00:20:11.310]while also establishing a platform
- [00:20:14.244]and speaking on behalf of the workers
- [00:20:16.852]until they felt protected enough,
- [00:20:20.280]comfortable enough, and brave enough
- [00:20:21.780]to speak on behalf of themselves.
- [00:20:23.880]And that for me was probably the most powerful piece.
- [00:20:27.510]And then she talked about,
- [00:20:28.969]just her problems or her issues around
- [00:20:32.130]the way that workers were incentivized, and still are
- [00:20:35.280]being incentivized to continue to come to work,
- [00:20:37.770]to not miss days,
- [00:20:38.970]to not take a sick day,
- [00:20:40.053]to continue to show up and,
- [00:20:42.349]the meat, the meat packing plants,
- [00:20:44.400]know that participants are paid well to end that.
- [00:20:48.822]They'll most likely respond.
- [00:20:52.140]Yeah.
- [00:20:52.973]So that's kind of where we're at.
- [00:20:55.204]Next week is the two cluster interviews.
- [00:20:58.530]So I'm, I'm pretty excited about that.
- [00:21:01.110]Well good evening everyone.
- [00:21:02.580]It's really great to see you
- [00:21:03.657]and very much a privilege
- [00:21:05.490]to be part of this wonderful set of projects.
- [00:21:08.550]I'm Becky Buller
- [00:21:09.535]and I'm speaking on behalf of Dr. Livingston and I,
- [00:21:12.953]and our great project.
- [00:21:15.240]Dr. Livingston and I both work
- [00:21:17.070]in the school of Global Integrative Studies.
- [00:21:19.110]associate director, Dr. Wanstead, you're here.
- [00:21:21.779]So no pressure for us, right?
- [00:21:24.684]Dr. Livingston is an anthropologist
- [00:21:27.720]and I'm a geographer
- [00:21:28.830]in the School of Global Integrative Studies.
- [00:21:31.770]So a little bit about how we approached this,
- [00:21:35.760]talk about Dr. Livingston and the me.
- [00:21:38.190]So Dr. Livingston again
- [00:21:39.600]is a cultural and medical anthropologist.
- [00:21:42.603]Many of her studies are more qualitative
- [00:21:45.600]in her methodology
- [00:21:47.490]and again,
- [00:21:48.323]more feminist, kind of critical, kind of slants to things.
- [00:21:53.970]And then I am a cultural, historical,
- [00:21:56.130]and educational geographer.
- [00:21:57.900]I like to approach research,
- [00:21:59.490]teaching, and service intersecting
- [00:22:02.114]many of these different elements.
- [00:22:04.947]So, in general this means constantly being reflective,
- [00:22:09.240]employing inclusive approaches
- [00:22:11.159]that endeavor to include all experiences
- [00:22:13.799]that highlight everyday life
- [00:22:16.170]and that amplify and empower often silenced voices.
- [00:22:21.720]So our project examines the experiences
- [00:22:24.360]of mothers who gave birth during the pandemic
- [00:22:27.450]by working with related non-profits
- [00:22:29.790]to recruit a diverse sample of subjects.
- [00:22:33.540]So along with generating stories,
- [00:22:36.150]the project aims to create a photo and map archive
- [00:22:39.900]to help give context to experiences.
- [00:22:42.940]And so that's coming. Yep.
- [00:22:45.103]The aim of our project is to understand
- [00:22:47.760]how the COVID 19 pandemic
- [00:22:49.950]has shaped the birth
- [00:22:51.030]and early infant feeding experiences of mothers.
- [00:22:54.810]New challenges further compound
- [00:22:56.610]the early difficulties faced by many mothers,
- [00:22:59.271]including those of mental health,
- [00:23:02.070]postpartum, and newborn care, and breastfeeding.
- [00:23:06.330]So our project seeks to make visible
- [00:23:09.300]how health disparities caused by the intersecting inequities
- [00:23:13.260]of race, class, and ethnicity
- [00:23:15.600]are exacerbated during a pandemic.
- [00:23:19.923]So a little bit about our sources,
- [00:23:22.470]a smaller study so far
- [00:23:24.270]we're at 25 women from the Lincoln and Omaha areas.
- [00:23:29.040]Of course these are 19 and above for IRB approval.
- [00:23:33.600]Our participants are roughly one fourth black,
- [00:23:36.630]indigenous and people of color, and three fourths white.
- [00:23:40.740]And they gave birth after January 30th,
- [00:23:44.730]right before the pandemic started.
- [00:23:50.670]What else do we want to share?
- [00:23:52.770]We recruited women
- [00:23:53.910]by partnering with local non-profits
- [00:23:56.400]who work with new mothers.
- [00:23:58.230]So if you're not familiar,
- [00:23:59.430]Milk Works is a breastfeeding support organization
- [00:24:02.441]and the Malone Center's Maternal Wellness Program
- [00:24:06.060]provides prenatal and postpartum services
- [00:24:09.600]to black, indigenous, and other women of color.
- [00:24:12.990]We conducted semi-structured interviews via Zoom
- [00:24:16.545]and to center women's pandemic experiences
- [00:24:20.490]and enabled them to tell their own story,
- [00:24:23.040]we employed photo voice,
- [00:24:24.690]a methodology that has women
- [00:24:26.850]take pictures of their daily life
- [00:24:28.800]and then share and discuss these photos with us,
- [00:24:31.680]the interviewers.
- [00:24:33.000]So these photos were really rich
- [00:24:34.800]along with their interview transcript.
- [00:24:37.380]We got some really rich context.
- [00:24:40.710]So if you're at all interested, here's a quick,
- [00:24:43.050]not even probably viewable snapshot of our, our budget.
- [00:24:47.400]And then just an example of a call for,
- [00:24:49.560]for participants on social media here.
- [00:24:53.820]Also as a picture that a mom shared with us
- [00:24:57.240]while she was filling out our questionnaire,
- [00:24:59.370]what her entire environment was like.
- [00:25:03.257]And then,
- [00:25:05.550]just the snapshot of our interview guide.
- [00:25:07.710]And again, this was all very quick,
- [00:25:09.330]so if you have more specific details on these things,
- [00:25:12.240]happy to talk more afterwards.
- [00:25:15.533]So our preliminary findings center on six things.
- [00:25:19.590]First quote unquote normal birth motherhood stressors.
- [00:25:22.953]Second, missing support systems.
- [00:25:25.413]Third, having increased stressors.
- [00:25:27.797]Fourth, not being listened to by their healthcare providers.
- [00:25:31.833]Fifth, dissimilar priorities of mothers and providers.
- [00:25:36.120]And sixth, taking extra precautions because of the pandemic.
- [00:25:40.290]So first quote unquote normal birth motherhood stressors.
- [00:25:43.953]Here we see, for example,
- [00:25:45.840]issues of milk production stresses right after birth.
- [00:25:49.500]Is the milk coming in? Is the baby latching on?
- [00:25:52.081]Is there stimulation of a steady milk supply?
- [00:25:56.220]After those early days,
- [00:25:57.688]the stresses of producing enough milk,
- [00:26:00.210]storing enough milk,
- [00:26:01.440]gathering and storing milk
- [00:26:02.756]while the mother is away from the baby.
- [00:26:05.490]So for example,
- [00:26:06.323]the image on the right here,
- [00:26:07.920]one of our participants was a soldier
- [00:26:10.590]and she would have to be away from the child
- [00:26:13.260]for long periods of time.
- [00:26:14.490]So up while she was in the plane,
- [00:26:16.230]she shows us her uniform, and her comfort.
- [00:26:19.800]And then the constant, again,
- [00:26:21.435]the constant stress of producing and storing enough milk
- [00:26:24.990]as months go on.
- [00:26:26.700]Parent and self care, excuse me,
- [00:26:30.120]dealing with lack of sleep, right?
- [00:26:31.740]Challenges with finding time for your personal hygiene.
- [00:26:34.770]When do you take a shower, brush your teeth kind of thing.
- [00:26:37.260]These normal stressors.
- [00:26:40.620]Second, with our findings, we see missing support systems.
- [00:26:44.198]And so with some several of these quotes
- [00:26:47.133]we give the basic demographics.
- [00:26:50.505]Please know that all names, are of course
- [00:26:52.890]pseudonyms and I'll let you, if you can,
- [00:26:56.925]skim a little bit there.
- [00:27:06.300]So in general here, right, we have,
- [00:27:08.370]we have an individual going through the normal stressors,
- [00:27:11.490]but even more high stress situation
- [00:27:13.801]without the ability to have her network
- [00:27:16.950]of care and support there.
- [00:27:21.150]Missing support systems, things like hospital rules,
- [00:27:24.060]especially early rules during the pandemic
- [00:27:26.610]when things weren't fully understood.
- [00:27:28.830]Isolation from family and the support network
- [00:27:31.320]while at the hospital, at home during
- [00:27:34.230]the first few months and years of the baby's life
- [00:27:36.810]away from your support system.
- [00:27:38.665]And then as it continues,
- [00:27:40.560]isolation at home for long periods of time
- [00:27:43.329]away from your family support systems because of COVID.
- [00:27:48.210]And then finally,
- [00:27:49.110]when people were allowed to come in your network of of care,
- [00:27:54.335]extreme differences of opinion
- [00:27:57.786]on what were safe practices of hygiene.
- [00:28:01.290]And we had lots of tears
- [00:28:03.390]and angry participants
- [00:28:05.820]sharing their stories there.
- [00:28:09.540]Third major finding that we we find
- [00:28:11.940]is increased stressors.
- [00:28:13.920]So again, here's another example, let's just skim.
- [00:28:22.140]So in,
- [00:28:22.973]in this case the issues of job
- [00:28:26.250]and enough money for caring for the child,
- [00:28:29.010]but then timing was off.
- [00:28:30.660]And so she, instead of getting a promotion,
- [00:28:32.940]she lost her job.
- [00:28:34.470]And so not only the care of the child concerns,
- [00:28:38.520]but financial concerns and stressors at the same time.
- [00:28:42.630]Another major issue that we find
- [00:28:44.400]is not being listened to by their healthcare providers.
- [00:28:47.530]And so in this specific case
- [00:28:49.710]there was an individual very much,
- [00:28:52.301]see her demographics.
- [00:28:55.092]She very much was educated
- [00:28:57.180]specifically on some of kind of maternity issues
- [00:29:00.450]and the health of breastfeeding
- [00:29:04.213]and that didn't connect with her healthcare providers.
- [00:29:07.620]And so they really
- [00:29:09.176]didn't see each other's dignity
- [00:29:11.430]and loss of respect.
- [00:29:12.540]And so, so much so that they called CPS on her.
- [00:29:19.230]Other findings,
- [00:29:20.063]misaligned or dissimilar priorities
- [00:29:22.140]of mothers and providers.
- [00:29:25.410]So the disconnect between actually having to breathe
- [00:29:29.220]and have doing this difficult physical work
- [00:29:32.790]and protecting the healthcare workers
- [00:29:35.550]in the room,
- [00:29:36.490]wearing a mask or not wearing a mask.
- [00:29:38.970]And then again also that dignity, respect,
- [00:29:41.340]disconnect between the,
- [00:29:43.980]the mother giving birth and the healthcare providers.
- [00:29:49.620]And then finally we very much see
- [00:29:51.330]taking extra precautions because of the pandemic.
- [00:29:54.870]This, this was a lot of the images we received.
- [00:29:57.450]So in the first one here we have Bethany.
- [00:29:59.462]Bethany already had lots of stress in her life
- [00:30:02.340]because all of her children had heart defects.
- [00:30:05.387]And so that had an incredible stress.
- [00:30:07.980]But then additional stresses
- [00:30:09.660]of trying to protect the children.
- [00:30:11.790]And so we see signs on doors for example.
- [00:30:14.413]We see a lot of signs on car seats
- [00:30:17.880]when people actually did leave the house,
- [00:30:20.610]increased many, many pictures of disinfectant
- [00:30:23.789]on the diaper bags.
- [00:30:25.437]Some individuals got bottle distillers,
- [00:30:28.920]antibacterial soap and distilled water,
- [00:30:31.590]items that they say they wouldn't
- [00:30:33.420]of otherwise have purchased except for the pandemic.
- [00:30:37.230]And then of course,
- [00:30:38.100]course social distancing
- [00:30:39.540]and extra laundry disinfectants.
- [00:30:43.470]So really quick overview, right?
- [00:30:45.780]Often early on
- [00:30:46.680]when specific details of COVID
- [00:30:48.390]weren't fully understood,
- [00:30:50.040]we find that a lot of times people,
- [00:30:52.064]healthcare providers,
- [00:30:53.820]the family,
- [00:30:54.720]were engaging in what we call hygiene theater.
- [00:30:57.499]And so we very much have recommendations
- [00:31:00.690]that this is an opportunity
- [00:31:01.800]to make policy changes for passing family leave
- [00:31:05.610]and prenatal care providing.
- [00:31:08.253]And then of course where there's always more to do,
- [00:31:11.640]this isn't a perfect study.
- [00:31:13.320]And so we have dreams of doing more things,
- [00:31:16.380]getting a more diverse population for our samples.
- [00:31:20.550]And then of course we haven't gotten yet
- [00:31:22.860]to the creation of the fun exciting art GIS story map
- [00:31:26.190]that will serve as a digital exhibit,
- [00:31:29.100]and for the sake of time, I will stop there.
- [00:31:31.740]Thank you.
- [00:31:32.880]So I'm Trevor Kauer.
- [00:31:33.900]I'm a fourth year doctoral student in the
- [00:31:36.000]Department of Communications studies
- [00:31:37.590]and I was the PI for this grant,
- [00:31:40.290]the principal investigator.
- [00:31:41.598]My colleague is Cassidy Taladay,
- [00:31:44.730]she's also a doctoral student in our department
- [00:31:48.540]and our advisor is Dr. Jody Koenig Kellas.
- [00:31:51.630]We do this research part of our Narrative Nebraska lab.
- [00:31:54.090]So I'm here to present that today
- [00:31:56.280]and speak for the three of us.
- [00:31:58.440]Our project was titled
- [00:31:59.610]Helping the Great Plains through the Pandemic
- [00:32:01.620]Healthcare Workers Making Sense of COVID-19
- [00:32:04.206]via Stories.
- [00:32:05.550]And that's because our research lab,
- [00:32:08.460]and what our research focuses on
- [00:32:09.990]is the connection between our quality of communication,
- [00:32:12.770]we believe is directly linked to the quality of our life.
- [00:32:15.930]And we do that through a variety different projects,
- [00:32:18.810]but we mainly focus on mixed methods projects.
- [00:32:21.720]So we collect a lot of qualitative data
- [00:32:23.820]and then we analyze it quantitatively.
- [00:32:25.830]And so we try to
- [00:32:27.930]warrant and respect and gather that really great rich,
- [00:32:31.140]descriptive data,
- [00:32:32.280]and then we look at it statistically
- [00:32:33.870]to try to make some more generalizations.
- [00:32:36.180]So our project focused on two questions.
- [00:32:38.418]First was how do frontline healthcare workers
- [00:32:41.460]tell the story of their pandemic experience.?
- [00:32:44.070]And then how is that related to their psychosocial health?
- [00:32:47.709]And so we were really focused on
- [00:32:49.380]gathering the stories of the frontline healthcare workers
- [00:32:52.200]in the pandemic,
- [00:32:53.033]and we really wanted to create a broad spectrum of stories.
- [00:32:56.418]So we are wanting to include,
- [00:32:59.254]we're ongoing data collection still,
- [00:33:01.470]we're wanting to include everyone from physicians
- [00:33:04.290]and those who are providing healthcare
- [00:33:06.120]to those working in billing offices,
- [00:33:08.130]front desk staff, janitorial or environmental safety staff,
- [00:33:11.750]those working in mental health, emergency rooms,
- [00:33:16.818]in clinical urgent care, clinical settings.
- [00:33:21.090]So really broad understanding
- [00:33:22.440]of frontline healthcare workers.
- [00:33:25.110]And we were using,
- [00:33:27.166]kind of a little background,
- [00:33:28.560]we use a theory that my advisor has created,
- [00:33:31.500]it's called communicated narrative sense making theory.
- [00:33:33.810]And it predicts the ways that we tell stories,
- [00:33:36.378]are going to be predictive of our health.
- [00:33:38.760]And specifically part of that theory
- [00:33:41.100]talks about how when we positively frame our stories,
- [00:33:43.383]when we remember our stories in a positive way,
- [00:33:46.500]we retell them in a way that frames them
- [00:33:50.130]as as more joyous, or more happy, or has more happy endings,
- [00:33:55.006]we are actually gonna have better wellbeing.
- [00:33:57.450]And that's part of our research.
- [00:33:58.800]And so we have those more positive stories,
- [00:34:01.440]we should have better psychosocial health.
- [00:34:04.440]And then we also wanted to talk about
- [00:34:06.690]and look into the, their stories
- [00:34:08.580]and looking at them in what we consider to be
- [00:34:10.800]story sequences.
- [00:34:12.090]And so we have three story sequences
- [00:34:14.070]that then provide us a window into individual's wellbeing.
- [00:34:17.430]And so those are redemptive,
- [00:34:19.047]and redemptive stories start at more of a a bad place,
- [00:34:24.240]but then end on a high note, so it gets better over time.
- [00:34:28.140]Contaminated stories start typically pretty good,
- [00:34:31.020]or end badly, or those that also bad to bad,
- [00:34:34.590]everything's just horrible, right?
- [00:34:36.091]And then redemptive,
- [00:34:37.860]of course is also everything's great, too.
- [00:34:40.203]And then ambivalent stories are those that
- [00:34:42.930]are both good and bad,
- [00:34:43.890]and they have peaks and valleys,
- [00:34:45.000]and there's no real clear story sequence
- [00:34:47.820]from good to bad or bad to good.
- [00:34:49.680]But it's really this undulation of
- [00:34:52.050]things are great, and then oh my gosh, it got worse,
- [00:34:53.820]but then it was awesome,
- [00:34:54.750]then it got really bad again, right?
- [00:34:56.490]And so we wanna see,
- [00:34:57.893]does it hold up,
- [00:34:59.520]does redemptive stories, those that end positively,
- [00:35:03.360]that have a good positive frame to them,
- [00:35:05.130]are they gonna actually be, can we support that?
- [00:35:07.663]Those who, those who tell redemptive stories
- [00:35:10.800]will have better wellbeing.
- [00:35:11.790]And so our method,
- [00:35:13.647]we are currently at six participants thanks to the grant.
- [00:35:17.340]We have enough money to pay our participants
- [00:35:20.047]$25 Amazon gift cards.
- [00:35:21.687]But we've struggled for the past two years with scammers,
- [00:35:24.930]and we've had people, a couple individuals,
- [00:35:28.950]I think it's one person personally,
- [00:35:30.360]but we've got one person who's-
- [00:35:32.400]We've seen him three times.
- [00:35:33.990]I have interviewed him three different times
- [00:35:35.730]then I stopped interviewing him.
- [00:35:38.370]But he submitted our pretest survey
- [00:35:41.310]that asked you to fill out wellbeing measures
- [00:35:43.830]of things like stress, anxiety, depression, self-esteem.
- [00:35:47.000]I have over, I think 150 different survey responses
- [00:35:51.660]from this one person.
- [00:35:53.016]Yep.
- [00:35:54.570]And so we did three interviews with 'em
- [00:35:56.900]and we were like, no, not this is not a real person
- [00:35:59.190]who actually worked in the pandemic
- [00:36:00.890]as a healthcare provider, or healthcare worker.
- [00:36:03.908]So we currently have six,
- [00:36:05.700]and they are combined between the six,
- [00:36:08.730]they are either retail or clinical pharmacists,
- [00:36:12.027]physician, specifically,
- [00:36:14.370]we have oncology and pediatric physicians,
- [00:36:16.380]and then some nursing assistants.
- [00:36:18.230]So like CNAs and medical assistants as well.
- [00:36:20.908]And then this project involved a lot of different stories.
- [00:36:25.345]We did the wellbeing survey that they filled out
- [00:36:27.960]online and that's our quantitative data.
- [00:36:30.556]And then we did a follow up interview
- [00:36:32.220]where we asked them to engage in
- [00:36:33.690]what we call a life chapter exercise.
- [00:36:35.610]And we told them to think about their pandemic experience
- [00:36:37.950]as a book with chapters and then they were gonna tell us
- [00:36:40.710]the titles of those chapters
- [00:36:42.030]and a little bit about what would be in that chapter.
- [00:36:44.670]And because of that exercise,
- [00:36:46.650]then we're able to then code those books,
- [00:36:49.650]essentially, as either redemptive, contaminated,
- [00:36:52.320]or ambivalent, and then able to see
- [00:36:54.324]is there a difference in how you're telling your story.
- [00:36:57.450]We also ask them, but I won't talk about it today,
- [00:36:58.620]we also ask them about key scenes
- [00:37:00.076]in their pandemic experience.
- [00:37:02.144]So a high point, a low point, and a turning point.
- [00:37:06.390]And then at the end,
- [00:37:07.710]we talked, asked them to tell us
- [00:37:09.660]kind of their advice
- [00:37:10.530]or what's the moral of the story,
- [00:37:12.210]what's the lesson you've learned in narrative literature
- [00:37:14.340]we call that a coda,
- [00:37:15.870]but it really is
- [00:37:16.703]what is the thing that you're gonna take away from this.
- [00:37:19.890]And so, a couple examples of our redemptive, ambivalent,
- [00:37:23.277]and contaminated stories.
- [00:37:24.900]One of our participants' book was titled
- [00:37:26.760]Phases of COVID Pandemic
- [00:37:27.737]'cause they really did see it as a phase.
- [00:37:30.450]And their first phase, or their first chapter was,
- [00:37:32.760]nothing is different at work,
- [00:37:34.020]but everything is different at home.
- [00:37:36.510]And then her second chapter was,
- [00:37:39.510]work is becoming insane
- [00:37:41.040]but things at home are halfway normal.
- [00:37:44.130]Third was work is fully insane,
- [00:37:45.990]but things are back to normal with the kids now.
- [00:37:48.570]And then her fourth chapter is
- [00:37:50.160]work insanity continues,
- [00:37:51.630]but at least my kids are back to normal.
- [00:37:53.340]And throughout her experience
- [00:37:55.740]she talked about how
- [00:37:57.510]at work things kind of started off slow.
- [00:37:59.880]We didn't necessarily have vaccines, this is a pharmacist,
- [00:38:02.266]they didn't have vaccines,
- [00:38:03.420]there was not much pharmacists
- [00:38:04.590]were going to do for the pandemic.
- [00:38:06.644]As vaccines became available, work got much worse.
- [00:38:11.490]There was a staff shortage,
- [00:38:14.155]there was typically people that were rude to them,
- [00:38:17.449]not understanding why they couldn't get the vaccine
- [00:38:20.190]because it did go out in phases, right?
- [00:38:22.496]And so work got worse, but,
- [00:38:25.110]with their kids, at the beginning of the pandemic,
- [00:38:27.704]didn't have to go to soccer practice
- [00:38:30.000]in three different soccer practices,
- [00:38:31.500]and there wasn't any running around with the kids.
- [00:38:33.810]It was so much easier to have everyone at home at one place.
- [00:38:36.675]And then as a, as the pandemic went on,
- [00:38:40.288]there, it was just a little bit different at the beginning
- [00:38:43.080]but it was nice.
- [00:38:44.550]And then by the end, you know kids are back normal.
- [00:38:46.650]So we go to this as redemptive
- [00:38:48.120]because it really does have a more positive frame to it
- [00:38:51.539]versus this individual
- [00:38:54.270]whose title of her book was
- [00:38:55.680]pharmacy chaos in a constant changing world.
- [00:38:58.020]She had three chapters.
- [00:38:59.460]The first was and so it begins,
- [00:39:01.080]and she really talked about in this chapter how
- [00:39:03.263]there was some lack of belief in,
- [00:39:06.680]in her department
- [00:39:08.167]and among her patients
- [00:39:09.900]that this was even a thing that was going to affect anybody
- [00:39:12.720]in the United States.
- [00:39:13.980]And then as the pandemic went on the pharmacy,
- [00:39:17.880]she worked as a clinical pharmacist.
- [00:39:19.220]There was hysteria
- [00:39:20.940]among a lot of the people coming in to get the vaccine.
- [00:39:25.087]A lot of people who got the vaccine
- [00:39:27.990]but then would have side effects
- [00:39:29.520]and complain to them
- [00:39:31.431]'cause they couldn't get in contact with their doctors,
- [00:39:32.660]the doctors were also very busy.
- [00:39:35.207]And then she really ended on this note
- [00:39:38.296]about just how she's felt a lot of anger and bitterness
- [00:39:42.300]from the world,
- [00:39:43.230]and that's really where she's at right now still,
- [00:39:46.230]just feeling anger and bitter
- [00:39:47.550]that this is something we even had to deal with.
- [00:39:49.800]And so there was a very negative frame to this story.
- [00:39:54.229]And then our ambivalent story,
- [00:39:56.040]one that kind of just goes up and down,
- [00:39:57.870]she specifically said that she didn't want give it a title,
- [00:40:01.740]she said it was untitled,
- [00:40:03.210]and then she had four chapters,
- [00:40:04.770]so first is you're all just overreacting.
- [00:40:06.831]This individual was an oncology pediatric physician,
- [00:40:11.040]so dealing with real small children
- [00:40:13.383]that had cancer.
- [00:40:15.240]So very terminal, short term, terminal diseases,
- [00:40:19.103]very short life of these children
- [00:40:22.920]and dealing with the stressors
- [00:40:25.830]and the nature of helping parents cope with that.
- [00:40:29.100]And then COVID on top of all of that,
- [00:40:30.900]it's also very difficult.
- [00:40:32.250]So at the very beginning it was,
- [00:40:33.840]you're all just overreacting about the pandemic.
- [00:40:35.640]We've got a lot of other things here
- [00:40:37.110]we need to worry about
- [00:40:38.247]and this is not one of them
- [00:40:39.690]that we should be worrying about.
- [00:40:40.860]And then it became,
- [00:40:41.850]okay well this is now something that's,
- [00:40:43.860]it's real, it's happening to us,
- [00:40:46.470]and it's really annoying
- [00:40:47.910]because it's not allowing me to give
- [00:40:50.490]the quality of medical care that I want.
- [00:40:53.190]I'm not allowed to have patients with their families.
- [00:40:56.580]I'm not allowed to have family members in the rooms together
- [00:40:59.430]if we are in the rooms
- [00:41:00.450]I can't see half their facial expressions
- [00:41:02.850]half the time cause of masks.
- [00:41:04.140]So it's just really annoying
- [00:41:05.190]and I can't be a good doctor anymore.
- [00:41:07.188]And then we got vaccines, and that was much better.
- [00:41:10.440]So there was kind of a uptick,
- [00:41:12.510]and she really enjoyed the fact that we had vaccines
- [00:41:14.490]because it allowed her to become a better physician
- [00:41:17.430]and a better healthcare provider.
- [00:41:19.003]And then now we're at kind of at a,
- [00:41:21.673]a life as normal perspective in the fourth chapter of,
- [00:41:25.140]this is just what we're gonna do now.
- [00:41:27.150]And some of us aren't vaccinated, and some of us are,
- [00:41:29.517]and we have protocol to follow and this is life as normal.
- [00:41:33.471]We don't see it changing anytime soon.
- [00:41:36.390]So there's a little bit more of a neutral, or ambivalent
- [00:41:38.713]undulation in in this story.
- [00:41:42.175]What we found,
- [00:41:43.860]I am gonna get up,
- [00:41:44.693]'cause I'm colorblind
- [00:41:45.930]so I could try to tell you what these bars are
- [00:41:47.880]but I couldn't tell you.
- [00:41:49.709]But here are the left most column,
- [00:41:51.702]which to me is the darkest color,
- [00:41:53.910]is our contaminated stories.
- [00:41:55.440]In the middle is our ambivalent stories,
- [00:41:57.510]and those of the right most of each of these
- [00:42:00.090]is the redemptive stories.
- [00:42:01.618]And we see that on these scales of
- [00:42:03.870]self-esteem, stress, and anxiety,
- [00:42:06.240]that for self-esteem specifically,
- [00:42:08.640]those that told contaminated in ambivalent stories
- [00:42:11.426]had less self-esteem than those who told redemptive.
- [00:42:15.960]Redemptive, people who told redemptive stories
- [00:42:18.660]had higher self-esteem.
- [00:42:20.243]Everyone was pretty much stressed
- [00:42:22.740]regardless of what story they told
- [00:42:24.090]which we expected 'cause it's a stressful time, right?
- [00:42:27.150]And then on anxiety, we see that those
- [00:42:30.009]who told contaminated stories told the most anxiety
- [00:42:33.026]and then ambivalent was lower than the contaminated,
- [00:42:38.124]the redemptive had the least amount of anxiety.
- [00:42:41.674]Redemptive story tellers have the least amount of anxiety.
- [00:42:44.580]So this is just preliminary findings,
- [00:42:46.137]and we have six participants,
- [00:42:47.820]so I do not feel comfortable running any kind of statistics
- [00:42:50.430]on six participants
- [00:42:51.770]even though I'd love to tell you
- [00:42:53.013]that these are statistically significant.
- [00:42:55.090]These are just means.
- [00:42:56.790]And so the scale ranges are, they're below.
- [00:42:59.640]So it kind of gives context a little bit
- [00:43:01.644]to, to those numbers.
- [00:43:03.990]But we do see,
- [00:43:04.890]and we do still expect,
- [00:43:06.150]once we get more participants
- [00:43:07.590]that we'll, we'll see that this same,
- [00:43:10.860]same findings,
- [00:43:11.693]that those that are telling more positive stories
- [00:43:13.950]and are able to make sense of their experiences
- [00:43:17.310]and put a positive frame to it
- [00:43:19.050]are going to fare better.
- [00:43:20.730]And those that are a little bit more pessimistic
- [00:43:23.460]in seeing the world through,
- [00:43:25.424]through the lens of
- [00:43:26.984]why is this happening to me?
- [00:43:29.160]Why am I even here?
- [00:43:30.720]This is just really, really crappy.
- [00:43:32.820]You're probably not going to have as,
- [00:43:34.530]as good psychosocial health.
- [00:43:36.900]And we have a lot of other measures as well.
- [00:43:39.600]These are just three that were,
- [00:43:42.330]were good examples for,
- [00:43:44.700]for right now.
- [00:43:45.533]But we have got other measures, coping efficacy,
- [00:43:48.912]stress related to contamination,
- [00:43:52.378]to checking behavior,
- [00:43:54.390]like checking the news,
- [00:43:55.800]checking with their family and friends, social media,
- [00:43:58.678]that depression is also measured.
- [00:44:02.130]So we've got a lot of other assessments
- [00:44:03.990]that we're really hoping to,
- [00:44:05.370]to see the,
- [00:44:06.960]a well framed story
- [00:44:09.297]and have better psychosocial health.
- [00:44:13.170]So what does this mean, essentially?
- [00:44:15.360]Well first we want to be able to document these stories.
- [00:44:17.670]That's one of our main goals in applying for this funding
- [00:44:20.640]and doing this project,
- [00:44:21.660]was to document the stories of healthcare workers.
- [00:44:24.300]'Cause, as a lot of them had said
- [00:44:27.570]in their lessons learned part,
- [00:44:28.860]the very end of their interviews with us,
- [00:44:30.960]they mentioned that
- [00:44:32.760]they really wish people would just be more patient,
- [00:44:34.873]which is hard because
- [00:44:36.766]we're all human and we all are scared.
- [00:44:39.660]And so, it was kind of one of the,
- [00:44:42.373]one of the lessons that they've learned
- [00:44:44.250]was that it just is
- [00:44:46.350]something that I need to be more patient
- [00:44:47.740]and I would really hope my patient
- [00:44:49.590]would be more patient with me as well,
- [00:44:51.690]because of it's,
- [00:44:52.523]everyone's a little scared.
- [00:44:54.090]And then second,
- [00:44:55.500]we do wanna continue to see that connection
- [00:44:57.600]between how our experiences are storied
- [00:45:00.210]and individual wellbeing.
- [00:45:01.500]So again, the quality of our communication,
- [00:45:03.570]how we tell our stories,
- [00:45:04.606]is then directly linked to the quality of our life
- [00:45:07.620]and specifically our health and wellbeing.
- [00:45:09.507]And so because of this,
- [00:45:10.680]what we do hope to do in the future
- [00:45:12.660]is to then build support for training
- [00:45:15.466]and positive storytelling.
- [00:45:17.598]Creating some training procedures or,
- [00:45:21.000]or exercises for people to make sense of their difficulty
- [00:45:25.770]or their illness,
- [00:45:26.603]in positive ways,
- [00:45:28.350]which then should support the,
- [00:45:30.870]their psychosocial health.
- [00:45:33.000]Again, we have six participants
- [00:45:34.590]and we really would like more.
- [00:45:36.180]So if, if you have any,
- [00:45:40.050]anybody that you know
- [00:45:41.250]that lives in the Great Plains
- [00:45:43.218]and is working in a healthcare setting,
- [00:45:45.960]we would really appreciate it
- [00:45:47.460]if you gave them
- [00:45:49.200]the email to participate in the study.
- [00:45:51.210]It's unlCOVIDstories@gmail.com.
- [00:45:53.958]It's a short online survey they take
- [00:45:56.160]and then about a 30 minute zoom call
- [00:45:59.190]and they will get a $25 Amazon gift card,
- [00:46:01.560]thanks to this great grant funding that we have.
- [00:46:04.038]And so we're really interested
- [00:46:06.540]in finishing out this project,
- [00:46:08.268]paying all 40 participants that we have money for,
- [00:46:11.130]and then running those stitches tests
- [00:46:12.690]to really prove that we connect
- [00:46:14.940]how we're telling our stories
- [00:46:16.454]is related to our health and wellbeing.
- [00:46:18.826]Thank you.
- [00:46:21.420]Okay, well thank you everyone.
- [00:46:24.317]And I can't really see everybody.
- [00:46:27.408]This is how it works.
- [00:46:29.284]So my name is Wynema Morris
- [00:46:32.940]and I teach at the Nebraska Indian Community College,
- [00:46:37.650]which is a college that's
- [00:46:39.288]owned and chartered by the Omaha tribe of Nebraska
- [00:46:43.292]and the Santee nation also of Nebraska,
- [00:46:46.488]and as sovereign nations,
- [00:46:49.797]we literally own these colleges.
- [00:46:52.740]We work with our faculty and,
- [00:46:55.170]and our administrators to make sure that we
- [00:46:58.890]are an accredited institution.
- [00:47:01.710]So when we began this, this, this study,
- [00:47:10.409]I'm the only one that was involved with it.
- [00:47:13.776]And as such, you know, it was a little difficult.
- [00:47:20.460]I did talk with a couple of other colleagues and said how,
- [00:47:24.049]you know, how should we go about this?
- [00:47:26.280]Because I do believe that our tribal communities,
- [00:47:30.240]our indigenous communities have
- [00:47:32.528]some unique stories to,
- [00:47:34.650]to share and to tell.
- [00:47:36.248]So essentially, after a few discussions with my colleagues
- [00:47:42.316]plus being on the archive committee for, for our
- [00:47:45.696]our, our campus site in Macy,
- [00:47:51.763]we decided at least was I was encouraged, go ahead and,
- [00:47:57.025]do this myself.
- [00:47:58.993]And I'm like, oh, usually I have help,
- [00:48:02.929]like, I rely on other colleagues for various things,
- [00:48:08.064]but everybody was really quite busy
- [00:48:12.271]at the time when we started this.
- [00:48:15.617]So I went, okay, first of all, I guess you're right,
- [00:48:19.920]I'll do this by myself.
- [00:48:21.672]I'm Omaha.
- [00:48:23.352]This is my community.
- [00:48:26.368]And I know just about everybody.
- [00:48:29.668]And I think
- [00:48:31.081]they would receive me well if I approached them
- [00:48:35.112]with this idea to share their story.
- [00:48:39.096]So about how they manage to cope with,
- [00:48:44.260]get through mourn through, grieve through
- [00:48:48.192]the COVID 19 experience.
- [00:48:52.468]So, it's not so much a study
- [00:48:56.151]as more a collection of oral histories.
- [00:48:58.152]And so that's the approach that I took.
- [00:49:00.476]We have the raw videos, it's,
- [00:49:04.872]it's a video collection of 10 people within our nation.
- [00:49:12.100]And the reason why we did a video
- [00:49:16.752]is because ultimately we want to make a film
- [00:49:22.446]to become part of the captured oral histories
- [00:49:26.380]of individuals
- [00:49:28.168]who could tell about and share their stories
- [00:49:33.340]about something that one of them in,
- [00:49:38.488]in the collection, a gentleman,
- [00:49:40.512]who said before we started filming,
- [00:49:44.771]and he said, you know,
- [00:49:47.908]knowing the history of this country
- [00:49:51.296]and its relationship with the United States,
- [00:49:53.308]do you think COVID
- [00:49:55.739]is just like the smallpox infection
- [00:50:00.945]of the early 1800s?
- [00:50:05.352]And I said, you know,
- [00:50:06.432]it's interesting that
- [00:50:07.916]you would bring that up
- [00:50:09.732]but if you'd like to talk more about this in the video,
- [00:50:12.956]please do, I have,
- [00:50:14.979]it's open-ended.
- [00:50:16.854]I have maybe three or four questions.
- [00:50:20.206]And so this is how I approached each of these individuals
- [00:50:25.075]and as said there are 10 of them,
- [00:50:27.816]and I chose deliberately
- [00:50:30.836]those tribal members who are,
- [00:50:35.460]who have a voice in the community,
- [00:50:38.172]but one that often does not get heard.
- [00:50:41.728]They have opinions, they have ideas,
- [00:50:46.165]but they often feel that they are overlooked.
- [00:50:49.736]So I, I found,
- [00:50:52.104](indistinct)
- [00:50:55.708]behind each one of those people.
- [00:50:57.803]And so I told them
- [00:51:00.836]what this was all about,
- [00:51:02.936]and they all know why, why do you want this and why now?
- [00:51:07.718]And so I said, well first of all
- [00:51:11.370]it'll be for us Omahas.
- [00:51:12.710]In other words, when one individual who said,
- [00:51:17.576]is this like the, the smallpox infection that, you know,
- [00:51:22.260]wiped out our tribe in the 1800s?
- [00:51:27.056]And again it was an interesting correlation
- [00:51:32.380]and,
- [00:51:35.040]where we lost probably about 75% of our people in,
- [00:51:38.913]in 1801 up to 18 probably oh, two, three,
- [00:51:43.680]somewhere in there.
- [00:51:46.243]And I wanted to know if the others
- [00:51:48.840]sort of recreated that same incident.
- [00:51:53.126]He was the only one that brought that up.
- [00:51:56.070]But this was open ended.
- [00:51:57.736]And, and I'll tell you why.
- [00:52:00.990]The minute you bring out a piece of paper
- [00:52:04.440]and they have to read and respond to something,
- [00:52:08.220]they lose interest,
- [00:52:10.260]and they'll push this piece of paper back at you
- [00:52:12.660]with your pencil and get up.
- [00:52:14.400]and say, well thank you you for the coffee,
- [00:52:17.190]but I, I'm gonna go home.
- [00:52:19.710]So this is why I did not present them with any,
- [00:52:23.230]any anything to show,
- [00:52:26.323]just simply video them.
- [00:52:29.070]And of course got their permission,
- [00:52:30.750]their signatures for it and,
- [00:52:33.501]and then they participated.
- [00:52:36.060]It's, it was very open-ended.
- [00:52:38.173]So I asked one of most important questions,
- [00:52:41.919]of course I had them introduce themselves
- [00:52:44.100]and then they, the,
- [00:52:46.140]the question was, you know, that COVID is sweeping
- [00:52:50.550]through this nation
- [00:52:51.570]and is sweeping through our tribal community on our res.
- [00:52:56.070]They said, yeah.
- [00:52:57.030]And I said, so how has
- [00:52:59.761]COVID affected you?
- [00:53:02.700]How has it impacted you?
- [00:53:04.898]What are your general feelings
- [00:53:06.788]about what's going on now?
- [00:53:09.873]And so the younger ones,
- [00:53:13.342]like they were, by younger,
- [00:53:15.040]I mean like late thirties,
- [00:53:17.132]going all the way up to the oldest,
- [00:53:19.308]the single oldest Omaha man who is still living.
- [00:53:25.800]Asking them this question,
- [00:53:27.448]and they would sit for a few minutes,
- [00:53:32.033]probably collecting their thoughts,
- [00:53:34.860]making sure that, you know,
- [00:53:37.200]I wasn't shoving this piece of paper at them,
- [00:53:39.510]or start doing something that they weren't prepared to do.
- [00:53:43.440]And in a sense of, you know, me getting their trust.
- [00:53:47.569]So they all said
- [00:53:49.893]some very interesting but common things in,
- [00:53:53.970]in their stories.
- [00:53:55.149]And one of them was that
- [00:53:58.320]I really miss my relatives.
- [00:54:03.000]And so I would ask some questions like,
- [00:54:06.510]well what specifically, what do you mean?
- [00:54:09.242]How, how do you miss them?
- [00:54:12.480]So they were kinda of,
- [00:54:13.500]these videos are kinda of conversational.
- [00:54:15.916]And they said, well,
- [00:54:19.036]you know,
- [00:54:20.232]we go to play hand games,
- [00:54:22.260]or we used to have these birthday feasts,
- [00:54:25.576]or we would, you know,
- [00:54:28.228]just get together as family,
- [00:54:30.783]and, and eat together and have a good time,
- [00:54:35.273]just talking and visiting.
- [00:54:37.952]But because of COVID we are told not to do so.
- [00:54:43.172]And of course, it's also the time of of getting the vaccines
- [00:54:47.550]and getting the, the the, yeah, the vaccines.
- [00:54:51.395]And I would ask them them, well did you get your vaccine?
- [00:54:56.697]And most of them did,
- [00:54:57.660]there were a couple who were,
- [00:54:59.812]what I'd call traditional,
- [00:55:02.177]in other words they,
- [00:55:04.468]they felt that prayer,
- [00:55:09.260]and following the pipe,
- [00:55:11.508]the way of the pipe,
- [00:55:13.176]would ultimately protect them
- [00:55:14.684]and that they had their own medicines that they would take.
- [00:55:18.868]And so they did not
- [00:55:20.517]want take the, what they said the white man's medicine.
- [00:55:25.018]It's kind of an interesting take on that
- [00:55:27.717]because I said well it's the white man's medicine
- [00:55:29.664]that's going to help us
- [00:55:31.663]because, the other individual that said about the, the,
- [00:55:37.050]the smallpox infection said
- [00:55:41.280]that, that vaccine, he said is, is, this is toxic.
- [00:55:47.850]Did you know that? Asking me?
- [00:55:49.980]And I said, well, can you explain to me what you mean?
- [00:55:52.700]And he said, well they put that same,
- [00:55:56.103]that same bug in you that you're trying to fight
- [00:56:01.840]and I'm afraid of it.
- [00:56:05.828]And I said, so are you traditional?
- [00:56:08.872]And I mean,
- [00:56:09.915]so this is all coming back to me
- [00:56:11.733]now that I've got these videos.
- [00:56:14.790]And he said, well no, not really, but I,
- [00:56:17.730]I'm just afraid of it.
- [00:56:20.272]So this sort of told me that
- [00:56:22.320]there wasn't sufficient information
- [00:56:24.690]getting out these people,
- [00:56:26.100]I was trying to describe them earlier,
- [00:56:28.400]but they are the ones that, again, have this voice.
- [00:56:31.577]They have opinions, but nobody asks them.
- [00:56:34.672]And even if they do contribute,
- [00:56:36.440]it's not like they're heard.
- [00:56:38.768]So I deliberately stayed away from,
- [00:56:40.792]our healthcare professionals,
- [00:56:42.832]I stayed away from people who are on the tribal council,
- [00:56:46.129]I stayed away from social services people,
- [00:56:48.750]I just went to the people themselves.
- [00:56:50.730]What were they experiencing?
- [00:56:54.096]So I would say that as an open-ended approach,
- [00:56:57.967]I got a lot of information at a real human level.
- [00:57:02.228]Like you all,
- [00:57:03.330]I didn't reduce it to numbers and statistics and,
- [00:57:06.210]you know, trends and everything,
- [00:57:08.040]which I really greatly admire you for doing,
- [00:57:10.133]because we need this kinda information as well.
- [00:57:13.453]But I wanted to make it as nonthreatening to them
- [00:57:17.571]as possible, and oldest of them cried.
- [00:57:24.057]And he said, I really miss sitting around the drum.
- [00:57:30.390]He's a singer,
- [00:57:31.290]and, in fact he got an award from the Smithsonian,
- [00:57:36.472]oh gosh,
- [00:57:37.770]several years ago,
- [00:57:39.300]because of his knowledge
- [00:57:40.880]of traditional song among our people.
- [00:57:44.037]And he said,
- [00:57:45.421]I really miss sitting around the drum,
- [00:57:47.738]practicing with my relatives
- [00:57:50.316]and the songs,
- [00:57:51.630]and then passing on my knowledge of these songs to them.
- [00:57:56.600]And he said, my grandson who drives for me,
- [00:58:02.500]makes sure that I wear my mask
- [00:58:05.590]and I really don't like that mask.
- [00:58:08.040]You can't sing through a mask.
- [00:58:11.520]And that's so true.
- [00:58:14.788]So he said, but my grandson takes care of me.
- [00:58:18.789]So I asked him, do you, did you get your vaccine?
- [00:58:21.387]And he said, I did.
- [00:58:23.260]And he said, and I hope, I hope that you know,
- [00:58:26.451]I can outlast this COVID,
- [00:58:28.615]it's really been hard.
- [00:58:30.656]And he said, you know, all these funerals,
- [00:58:33.808]I mean we were, we were having funerals
- [00:58:36.240]week after week,
- [00:58:37.680]sometimes a day apart,
- [00:58:39.536]of people who were succumbing to, you know,
- [00:58:43.016]you know, I could bring one of you up,
- [00:58:46.588]but we wanna do some statistical study
- [00:58:48.612]and we could probably find out that
- [00:58:51.012]nutrition plays a big huge role.
- [00:58:53.117]And if you will recall,
- [00:58:54.730]oh it's,
- [00:58:56.020](indistinct)
- [00:58:57.836]coming and, and getting people on the
- [00:58:59.352](indistinct)
- [00:59:00.630]the ones that are going to succumb first are
- [00:59:02.693]the aging, those with high blood pressure,
- [00:59:06.268]those with diabetes, and there was another condition,
- [00:59:11.816]and the Omahas,
- [00:59:13.740]they didn't have to be old to succumb.
- [00:59:16.751]Probably 90, 90% of our people have diabetes,
- [00:59:22.890]they have high blood pressure, they have nephritis,
- [00:59:25.523]they have all of things associated
- [00:59:28.020]with that debilitating disease.
- [00:59:30.630]So it's almost no surprise that
- [00:59:34.380]we were having these funerals,
- [00:59:36.190]almost, in fact every week.
- [00:59:39.973]The feeling on the tribe was very, very heavy.
- [00:59:44.696]It was so,
- [00:59:46.876]approaching this in this way for me
- [00:59:49.017]was probably the best way to do it.
- [00:59:50.746]I couldn't, like I said,
- [00:59:52.016]give them piece of paper,
- [00:59:53.340]or show them a lecture,
- [00:59:55.112]or anything else to see what I was doing,
- [00:59:57.460]why I was doing it, et cetera.
- [00:59:59.340]That would not have worked in this situation.
- [01:00:02.116]We're collective peoples to begin with.
- [01:00:05.100]And we are very social with each other.
- [01:00:09.076]And because of that,
- [01:00:11.253]this sense of isolation that was imposed on us
- [01:00:15.540]by our own government
- [01:00:17.765]was really difficult to take.
- [01:00:21.496]The tribal government itself
- [01:00:25.350]did what they could
- [01:00:26.660]to try to alleviate the sense of,
- [01:00:29.610]of loss, and grief,
- [01:00:32.760]as well as this sense of uncertainty,
- [01:00:36.450]and insecurity, and isolation.
- [01:00:39.937]So they put up a number of
- [01:00:44.010]traditional ceremonial prayer meetings
- [01:00:49.027]and invited people to attend.
- [01:00:51.570]Well it was very,
- [01:00:52.844]on the one hand you have keep social distancing.
- [01:00:54.377]And that's what they said,
- [01:00:55.703]that if you come you need to social distance
- [01:00:58.980]and how do you sing through a mask?
- [01:01:01.530]As
- [01:01:02.363](indistinct)
- [01:01:03.196]who was the oldest gentleman on our reservation,
- [01:01:04.980]you know, how do you sing through a mask?
- [01:01:06.839]So culturally speaking,
- [01:01:08.847]this was really a devastating time for our people.
- [01:01:13.543]Is it measurable?
- [01:01:14.457]No, 'cause it's only anecdotal.
- [01:01:17.577]So we can't say qualitative,
- [01:01:19.699]or quantitative in terms of looking at that,
- [01:01:23.419]and I wish that we could,
- [01:01:25.081]but that was not my approach.
- [01:01:27.139]I mean I knew my people
- [01:01:28.727]sufficiently well to treat them tenderly,
- [01:01:32.791]to treat them with respect,
- [01:01:34.740]and to listen to what they were going through.
- [01:01:38.490]One lady said,
- [01:01:40.200]oh, my whole family, we had COVID,
- [01:01:43.770]and this was, like, after the vaccine
- [01:01:48.449]we probably were old age,
- [01:01:50.627]and of course they lived in what we call
- [01:01:52.667]scattered site housing,
- [01:01:54.211]which is, they live their own allotment,
- [01:01:57.139]their own allotment plots.
- [01:02:02.113]Plots are very small now, but,
- [01:02:04.771]in any event I said, so how did you,
- [01:02:07.502]what you mean you all had it?
- [01:02:10.719]Well, she said,
- [01:02:11.552]I caught it first,
- [01:02:12.385]she said I had my vaccine, the first one,
- [01:02:14.439]and I got really, really ill
- [01:02:18.276]as I was beginning to feel better,
- [01:02:21.203]my son came down with it.
- [01:02:23.031]And then right after that, my husband.
- [01:02:26.629]And it was difficult.
- [01:02:28.851]And we had cell phones,
- [01:02:31.103]and on the reservation, I mean,
- [01:02:33.607]there's so many things that, you know,
- [01:02:36.623]work and don't work there.
- [01:02:38.660]He said, with my cell phone,
- [01:02:40.059]I wasn't sure that I could get in touch
- [01:02:42.828]with some of my relatives because we needed food.
- [01:02:46.839]So who was gonna get it for us?
- [01:02:49.163]How would they get it for us?
- [01:02:51.527]What was the, she said
- [01:02:53.543]I didn't know,
- [01:02:54.591]should I them come into my house?
- [01:02:57.051]Or should I have them just leave it on the porch?
- [01:03:00.831]And then put the money under a rock?
- [01:03:04.043]How do I do all of this?
- [01:03:06.338]She said that my biggest fear
- [01:03:07.523]was not being able to connect with.
- [01:03:10.551]when I heard
- [01:03:11.390](indistinct)
- [01:03:12.563]she would go to these
- [01:03:13.821](indistinct)
- [01:03:16.110]and she said as bad as I felt,
- [01:03:18.957]and as bad as her husband felt,
- [01:03:21.023]and her son of course was quite young,
- [01:03:23.430]so they did charge of the household between them.
- [01:03:27.120]He said, but it was really a hard time,
- [01:03:30.090]I felt sorry for my son,
- [01:03:31.836]he was so sick,
- [01:03:33.191]and we didn't know
- [01:03:34.183]if any one of us would come out of this
- [01:03:36.745]dead or alive.
- [01:03:38.439]And, so I spent a lot of time just praying.
- [01:03:42.864]And I said,
- [01:03:43.899]but you're here now,
- [01:03:45.357]and you've gotten a couple of more vaccines, right?
- [01:03:48.540]She said, I did.
- [01:03:49.710]We did.
- [01:03:50.670]And things are a little bit better now.
- [01:03:53.100]But for a while,
- [01:03:54.295]she said,
- [01:03:55.315](indistinct)
- [01:03:56.711]because we live out where we do,
- [01:03:57.923]I didn't know if we would lay in our house dead
- [01:04:01.975]for weeks,
- [01:04:02.910]before anybody would try to check on us.
- [01:04:05.100]or even find we were out that we were still here.
- [01:04:07.404]She said I,
- [01:04:08.275]it was just a very difficult time mentally,
- [01:04:12.191]I think what she means is probably emotionally
- [01:04:14.256]and psychologically,
- [01:04:16.135]so the sense of isolation was quite heavy.
- [01:04:19.747]The sense of, not sense,
- [01:04:21.075]but that the grief and the mourning was also quite heavy
- [01:04:24.762]on my res,
- [01:04:25.595]nothing was lighthearted,
- [01:04:28.272]nothing was,
- [01:04:30.260]people still tried to go to work.
- [01:04:33.657]The messages coming from government were very confusing.
- [01:04:38.383]And even though they, they could have,
- [01:04:42.783]at one point, they put up these checkpoints,
- [01:04:46.047]but the checkpoints were, the people were not trained to,
- [01:04:50.671]to, to checkpoint anything.
- [01:04:54.480]And so people would come onto the reservation,
- [01:04:57.059]specifically into Macy,
- [01:04:59.663]and all these people with do was just in your car.
- [01:05:04.140]And, and I would go there, and they'd say, oh,
- [01:05:06.510]where you coming from?
- [01:05:07.726]I'd say, well Carol, and so,
- [01:05:09.335]oh, okay, go through.
- [01:05:11.359]And so I did contact the tribal council,
- [01:05:13.835]and I said, well these checkpoints,
- [01:05:16.743]why are we having, what was their purpose?
- [01:05:19.639]And he said,
- [01:05:20.472]well that's primarily trying people out from
- [01:05:24.410]off reservation if that's possible
- [01:05:28.050]because we don't want to continue to magnify the,
- [01:05:32.655]the, intensity of catching COVID.
- [01:05:37.020]So it was a really difficult time,
- [01:05:38.640]but it was like anybody and everybody
- [01:05:40.835]could get through those checkpoints,
- [01:05:42.243]and it was almost,
- [01:05:43.830]I don't know, it was kinda a hollow
- [01:05:46.921]response of,
- [01:05:48.995]or to show, a hollow show of showing,
- [01:05:51.537]not only concern, but of caring
- [01:05:55.110]for the people and, and the people saw through it.
- [01:05:58.207]So, we had all these different layers of people
- [01:06:02.452]that I deliberately stayed away from
- [01:06:05.085]for this study.
- [01:06:07.440]And at the end of this, you know, I was really sad,
- [01:06:11.130]now, the guy who talked about the, the,
- [01:06:15.464]the 1801, 1799 small pox infection,
- [01:06:21.540]he said, you know,
- [01:06:23.862]I wanted to come up here and talk to you about this.
- [01:06:27.419]And I said, good, I'm glad you did.
- [01:06:29.517]And he said,
- [01:06:30.350]because we are fortunate
- [01:06:32.790]out all of this,
- [01:06:34.110]and this, this whole, this whole COVID thing,
- [01:06:37.167]and this infection.
- [01:06:39.071]He said, we get to tell you,
- [01:06:42.420]we get to tell somebody our stories,
- [01:06:45.195]those guys back in 1801.
- [01:06:48.523]He said, they,
- [01:06:50.310]they just died.
- [01:06:51.870]The only way we know about it is because you find it
- [01:06:54.450]in the history books.
- [01:06:56.460]And so I said, well thank you for that,
- [01:06:59.939]for clarifying that,
- [01:07:01.620]but this is why he wanted me to,
- [01:07:03.810]to, this is why he wanted participate,
- [01:07:06.120]and was glad that I had asked.
- [01:07:07.950]So my line is pretty much,
- [01:07:11.459]I did it myself,
- [01:07:13.499]I did run the questions by a few people,
- [01:07:16.173]but I kept it pretty much
- [01:07:18.690]as a video of people telling their stories,
- [01:07:21.810]their hardships, their sense of isolation.
- [01:07:24.505]And it was extremely difficult because
- [01:07:26.943]many them cried and, and they, when were they said,
- [01:07:30.510]can you turn it off?
- [01:07:32.010]So we are going to edit
- [01:07:33.783]and put this, all of 10 stories together
- [01:07:36.900]because the, the theme is very, very common
- [01:07:41.715]that the, the fact that the one woman
- [01:07:44.070]felt that she would not have her ability
- [01:07:46.891]to use her cell phone reflects, you know,
- [01:07:50.100]other larger social issues,
- [01:07:51.900]just like COVID itself,
- [01:07:53.580]is that these reservations are,
- [01:07:56.250]are internet deserts.
- [01:07:59.580]So we don't have access to computers,
- [01:08:03.720]we don't, we have access to computers
- [01:08:06.050]even though everybody sits there on Facebook.
- [01:08:08.943]Only a certain segment of our population
- [01:08:13.290]is very facile with Facebook.
- [01:08:15.919]The elders, the ones that,
- [01:08:18.543]the ones that I had in the study,
- [01:08:20.220]they don't know how to use computers,
- [01:08:22.020]they don't even know,
- [01:08:23.340]they know what the internet is to some degree,
- [01:08:25.699]but to be able to use it
- [01:08:28.157]and to rely on it for communication purposes,
- [01:08:30.919]to even hook up to the tribal council's
- [01:08:36.529]Zoom meetings,
- [01:08:37.892]where they wanted to connect with the people
- [01:08:40.747]about, I'd say probably 70% of the Omahas
- [01:08:44.647]do not have the ability,
- [01:08:47.603]either they don't own a computer,
- [01:08:49.960]even though their grandchild might own a cell phone,
- [01:08:54.143]that, the use of that cell is quite spotty on the res.
- [01:08:58.320]So there was this assumption, I think,
- [01:09:01.171]by the tribal leaders
- [01:09:02.004]quite wrongly was that they,
- [01:09:03.767]whenever they had an announcement,
- [01:09:06.330]they'd get on Facebook,
- [01:09:07.680]they would have a Zoom meeting,
- [01:09:09.691]but people, the Omahas were hooking up through Zoom.
- [01:09:13.398]This is not case.
- [01:09:15.618]And in the meantime,
- [01:09:18.290]or since then, they have not been applying for
- [01:09:21.777]the FCC to put up these huge towers.
- [01:09:25.366]NICC, has partnered with our tribe
- [01:09:29.280]is also pitching it as well,
- [01:09:32.070]and we're putting a couple of towers as well.
- [01:09:34.890]So this would hopefully alleviate connectivity,
- [01:09:39.823]but it doesn't alleviate the, you know,
- [01:09:42.732]the purchasing of technology so that it's usable.
- [01:09:46.950]So, you know, this, this
- [01:09:49.214]I think is a, is a really important,
- [01:09:51.956]I think it's gonna be an important video
- [01:09:55.334]because it does tell,
- [01:09:57.330]I'm sure other nations probably got into this as well,
- [01:10:00.390]but the fact that we are collectively minded people
- [01:10:04.680]we're very social with one another,
- [01:10:07.038]the sense of isolation really hit hard.
- [01:10:10.398]The loss, and the death
- [01:10:12.660]of so many immediate relatives, you know,
- [01:10:15.753]was, was devastating.
- [01:10:17.970]It was made twice as devastating
- [01:10:19.890]because when their funerals were being held,
- [01:10:22.888]most of the relatives couldn't go
- [01:10:25.650]because of social distancing.
- [01:10:28.680]And many that did go, you know,
- [01:10:30.994]said that they had to wear their masks,
- [01:10:32.580]and they didn't know,
- [01:10:34.020]they to like to hug, and one reassure one another.
- [01:10:37.710]And social distancing prohibited that.
- [01:10:40.954]So that,
- [01:10:42.750]that was even more difficult to take
- [01:10:45.240]not only the loss of a, you know, kin,
- [01:10:48.919]but the fact that you can't comfort the family,
- [01:10:51.120]that you can't in some,
- [01:10:52.560]I missed many many funerals myself
- [01:10:55.320]simply because of my age.
- [01:10:57.510]I'm diabetic, hypertensive, and what was the other thing?
- [01:11:01.042]I can't remember. It was a fourth thing.
- [01:11:02.886]I'll probably remember,
- [01:11:04.326]but we were prime targets for,
- [01:11:06.727]for you knowing catching it and dying from it.
- [01:11:11.073]So my husband and I
- [01:11:13.230]isolated ourselves, didn't go anywhere.
- [01:11:16.386]Were afraid to go.
- [01:11:17.307]And unfortunately we went out, we, we messed up.
- [01:11:21.267]So it was a little bit beyond there.
- [01:11:25.450]We could
- [01:11:26.283](indistinct)
- [01:11:28.077]and not taking the vaccine because we lost so many people
- [01:11:31.367]during this time.
- [01:11:32.670]I'm not sure what the percentage of loss was
- [01:11:36.600]on this reservation alone,
- [01:11:39.420]but it was rather high for such a short period of time.
- [01:11:43.530]So that was my study.
- [01:11:45.044]And I think right now
- [01:11:48.000]with the vaccines that are coming out,
- [01:11:51.256]boosters rather,
- [01:11:52.364]that I have seen some of these people again
- [01:11:55.287]and I've asked them, oh, we did lose one individual
- [01:11:58.920]outta the study.
- [01:12:00.000]And he was rather young,
- [01:12:02.880]but he also had severe diabetes,
- [01:12:05.536]and of course high blood pressure,
- [01:12:07.576]but even though he was much younger than me,
- [01:12:11.017]but I was shocked.
- [01:12:12.450]We lost him a year ago.
- [01:12:14.788]And I was so devastated by that because he worked
- [01:12:19.260]at the college,
- [01:12:21.540]and I was like, oh my gosh, do I ever miss this guy.
- [01:12:25.650]So, you know,
- [01:12:26.483]it would be good to do,
- [01:12:28.140]maybe some statistics
- [01:12:30.150]to be able to show as,
- [01:12:32.550]you know, hard data,
- [01:12:33.750]but I didn't approach it that way.
- [01:12:35.940]I went after the human story
- [01:12:37.050]and I believe I captured some good stuff.
- [01:12:40.920]So, that was my approach.
- [01:12:42.600]What I did.
- [01:12:43.586]If have any other questions for me,
- [01:12:46.424]I'd be happy to tell them.
- [01:12:49.784]But I did wanna say this in closing though,
- [01:12:52.004]thank you UNL,
- [01:12:54.208]and the Center for Great Plains Studies
- [01:12:56.760]for letting me participate and providing our little grant.
- [01:13:02.160]I think we got some good information
- [01:13:04.620]and I did like what the one guy said,
- [01:13:07.124]we got to tell our stories,
- [01:13:09.911]while the Omahas in 1801 did not.
- [01:13:12.452]So, all things balance out after all,
- [01:13:15.588]so UNL, thank you very much.
- [01:13:18.630]So, you used the term,
- [01:13:26.460]now I've forgotten,
- [01:13:27.293]I think collective efficacy
- [01:13:29.430]and I was wondering if you could unpack that and,
- [01:13:32.847]and just relay how that played into your particular-
- [01:13:37.868]Yeah, thank you for your question.
- [01:13:39.200]So collective efficacy is originally a theory from,
- [01:13:43.529]well it's used mainly in criminology
- [01:13:45.810]to show how communities organize informally
- [01:13:48.511]to prevent crime in neighborhoods and in communities.
- [01:13:52.251]And so how social connections come together
- [01:13:55.680]to, you know, basically
- [01:14:00.300]buffer the effects of crime, isolation,
- [01:14:03.711]of illnesses in many communities.
- [01:14:06.870]And so in our case,
- [01:14:07.830]collective efficacy is
- [01:14:09.384]the idea of how everybody came together informally
- [01:14:13.320]through technology, or in person sometimes
- [01:14:16.740]to really buffer the effects,
- [01:14:18.023]all the alienative effects,
- [01:14:19.956]alienative?
- [01:14:21.270]Sorry,
- [01:14:22.592]it's been a long day,
- [01:14:23.425]alienating effects of the pandemic,
- [01:14:25.113]but originally it's, it's a term from criminology.
- [01:14:28.436]Thank you.
- [01:14:29.790]You're welcome.
- [01:14:32.703]More questions?
- [01:14:33.536]One, one thing I really noticed
- [01:14:40.350]that was really intriguing to me
- [01:14:42.330]is that some of the projects were focused
- [01:14:44.910]on kind of like individual responses.
- [01:14:46.860]I was thinking particularly of you all,
- [01:14:49.230]Trevor, and looking at how individuals tell stories
- [01:14:53.550]about themselves and how that can contribute
- [01:14:55.700]to their wellbeing.
- [01:14:56.945]But when Wynema was talking,
- [01:14:58.920]and Christian and Isabelle,
- [01:15:00.330]and Amanda were all talking,
- [01:15:02.490]I was thinking about there's another
- [01:15:05.130]kind of collective response,
- [01:15:06.709]and, that I mean, taken together,
- [01:15:13.050]these projects are really interesting because
- [01:15:15.150]they suggest the importance of kind of
- [01:15:17.910]collective response to these things.
- [01:15:20.970]That this is a way to buffer,
- [01:15:22.680]or it's a way,
- [01:15:23.964]I also was so intrigued, my Wynema, thinking about how
- [01:15:29.310]Omaha people were
- [01:15:30.913]really connecting this current contemporary experience
- [01:15:34.830]with something that happened two, over 200 years ago.
- [01:15:37.693]And,
- [01:15:38.700]and it made me think too about,
- [01:15:40.710]like, some of the meat packing families,
- [01:15:43.860]and how they have another kind of context that,
- [01:15:47.733]that is shaping their response to,
- [01:15:50.370]to COVID.
- [01:15:51.780]You know, fears of, you know,
- [01:15:55.457]workplace retaliation and things like that.
- [01:15:59.070]So, I wonder if y'all have any thoughts about
- [01:16:02.040]that kind of tension between individual
- [01:16:04.770]and collective responses?
- [01:16:06.027]Can can, can you speak a little bit louder?
- [01:16:08.610]I missed the latter part of that.
- [01:16:10.797]I was wondering if you all have
- [01:16:13.397]any thoughts about the tension
- [01:16:16.050]between individual and collective responses.
- [01:16:20.790]So do you wanna go first?
- [01:16:22.846]No, go ahead.
- [01:16:23.679]But I, I've got a thought, but let me, I want,
- [01:16:26.160]I want you to speak first. So this is something that,
- [01:16:28.915]it's, did not come and this,
- [01:16:30.930]to quote something that's a different analysis,
- [01:16:34.740]similar analysis with different results that we're doing,
- [01:16:37.023]is that at some point,
- [01:16:39.617]at least in the Latino community in Omaha,
- [01:16:42.829]and I think I can also jump in
- [01:16:44.225]because she knows this community very well.
- [01:16:46.415]The state was replaced by organizations.
- [01:16:51.425]Directly.
- [01:16:52.830]So, in part because
- [01:16:54.420]some of the funding that came from
- [01:16:56.130]the federal government
- [01:16:57.930]didn't reach, those were undocumented,
- [01:17:00.437]in part because they were simply,
- [01:17:03.450]there's a complete distrust
- [01:17:05.010]that the city was gonna do anything.
- [01:17:07.560]And that, some results that came on the other survey,
- [01:17:10.097]there's no trust that the city, or the federal,
- [01:17:14.484]or the state,
- [01:17:15.317]were going to support small businesses in that case.
- [01:17:18.469]So it was the Boys and Girls club in South Omaha
- [01:17:24.600]that put together a way of giving food to the kids
- [01:17:28.957]that could no longer there.
- [01:17:30.780]But they are the ones that got the funding,
- [01:17:32.730]that went out,
- [01:17:33.597]and this is every single organization.
- [01:17:36.274]Churches did the same.
- [01:17:37.950]We have one of our interviewees who also talks about
- [01:17:41.241]how it is a church that went to organize to give food.
- [01:17:45.240]So, it is because of the role that the community plays
- [01:17:50.490]in general in the everyday life of those who are members.
- [01:17:53.481]But it's also a, you know,
- [01:17:55.607]it's a way as a buffer of the lack of government,
- [01:17:58.560]the lack of government support,
- [01:18:01.247]that in this case Latinos of Omaha
- [01:18:03.290]have had continually felt.
- [01:18:05.490]So the obvious response was, we will take care of our own.
- [01:18:12.347]I think that connects to a question I had actually,
- [01:18:14.247]about, about what you shared Trevor,
- [01:18:16.569]in this study, in my study,
- [01:18:20.141]and in Wynema's study,
- [01:18:23.093]all of our studies
- [01:18:24.818]centered people of color as like the,
- [01:18:30.401]the black, indigenous, or Latino populations
- [01:18:35.573]and race, ethnicity, marginalizations,
- [01:18:39.120]kind of their racialized experiences
- [01:18:41.580]as people in the Midwest or on the, on the,
- [01:18:44.889]in the Great Plains,
- [01:18:45.722]that was central to kind of the identities
- [01:18:47.580]of the participants.
- [01:18:48.810]And so as you were talking,
- [01:18:50.010]I was like,
- [01:18:50.965]what is the race, ethnicity of these participants?
- [01:18:54.360]What is their age?
- [01:18:55.410]What is their socioeconomic status?
- [01:18:57.445]Yeah.
- [01:18:58.278]What is their immigrant status?
- [01:18:59.111]Like my gears were just like,
- [01:19:01.110]so I was curious if you had done any desegregation.
- [01:19:04.080]I know you've only got six participants, but-
- [01:19:06.000]Yep. Yeah, so we do, yeah,
- [01:19:07.680]our six participants that they're all white
- [01:19:09.452]and we're having struggles to get anybody to, to talk.
- [01:19:13.680]And so it's been,
- [01:19:14.513]those six have been from
- [01:19:16.342]just network sampling of just like people that we know.
- [01:19:19.950]And so as I'm white,
- [01:19:21.990]my co-authors are white, like that's,
- [01:19:23.417]that's what we're accessed is right now.
- [01:19:25.620]We really want to be able to get a more diverse population,
- [01:19:28.290]which is why we're really,
- [01:19:29.680]we're this semester working
- [01:19:31.593]closely with some of the,
- [01:19:34.381]like the, there's a center for Asian Pacific Islanders,
- [01:19:38.687]I guess I don't remember the exact name right now,
- [01:19:41.907]but working with them to advertise for the study
- [01:19:44.250]to talk about their experiences as healthcare workers
- [01:19:48.810]working with the group in Omaha
- [01:19:50.970]to try to get participant as well.
- [01:19:52.740]So specifically targeted diverse recruitment strategies
- [01:19:57.120]to really, to try to try to diversify our sample.
- [01:20:00.540]But yeah,
- [01:20:01.530]and we've got some demographic data
- [01:20:02.850]that I didn't share and I couldn't tell you
- [01:20:05.101]off the top of my head either. But largely, you know, it's,
- [01:20:09.655]it's dependent on their occupation,
- [01:20:10.890]those that physicians are definitely more well off, right?
- [01:20:13.461]Those that are working as CNAs,
- [01:20:15.540]or as front desk staff,
- [01:20:17.910]they're, you know,
- [01:20:18.990]have more low income, middle income.
- [01:20:21.877]So it just kinda depends.
- [01:20:24.002]So I think it's interesting,
- [01:20:25.680]the stark contrast between,
- [01:20:27.390]like what we know about predominantly white populations
- [01:20:30.000]being more individualized
- [01:20:32.040]versus communities of color being more collective.
- [01:20:35.190]So I'm not surprised by it.
- [01:20:36.870]I think it's fascinating but I'm not surprised by it.
- [01:20:39.157]Completely.
- [01:20:43.615]I do have another question for Trevor.
- [01:20:45.720]Yeah?
- [01:20:46.553]And that is,
- [01:20:47.386]how do we know that
- [01:20:49.770]people are able to tell positive stories
- [01:20:53.040]because of their, their, their sociopsycho state is better.
- [01:21:00.270]I mean you kind of set up the causality in one direction,
- [01:21:03.949]but couldn't it be the other direction?
- [01:21:05.730]Completely. Could definitely be the other direction.
- [01:21:08.088]It's also my goal at the site.
- [01:21:10.650]So my advisor and I heads on this a lot.
- [01:21:12.740]She loves the idea that as we tell positive stories,
- [01:21:17.190]that that helps our wellbeing.
- [01:21:18.630]I, well actually
- [01:21:20.400]as I graduate this semester,
- [01:21:21.780]and I'll move into a faculty position next fall,
- [01:21:24.210]I'm really interested in how we tell stories
- [01:21:28.560]of negative or difficulty in negative ways
- [01:21:31.290]and how that actually can improve our health.
- [01:21:33.180]Or how too positive of a story
- [01:21:35.760]can actually be short term great,
- [01:21:38.220]but long term not actually that great.
- [01:21:41.010]And so that's directionality,
- [01:21:43.470]completely a more positive mindset.
- [01:21:45.873]Definitely tells more positive stories.
- [01:21:48.083]And also I think that, too positive can be a thing.
- [01:21:51.720]And so that's my exact question in future studies,
- [01:21:54.720]is trying to, to really tease that out,
- [01:21:57.000]tease that out.
- [01:21:57.833]Denial.
- [01:21:59.364](all laughing)
- [01:22:00.395]Yep, There's too much of like, this is too positive.
- [01:22:02.160]Substance altering, you know.
- [01:22:03.540]Cause we know that COVID was hard time,
- [01:22:06.090]so are you being too positive about this?
- [01:22:08.010]Are you not really confronting what you experienced?
- [01:22:11.797]And is that indicative in your, you know,
- [01:22:15.690]quantitative assessment of these wellbeing factors?
- [01:22:19.662]Yeah.
- [01:22:21.870]You had a question?
- [01:22:23.334]Yeah. Well I guess Trevor,
- [01:22:24.560]you're the man on the spot.
- [01:22:27.690]I was interested in the,
- [01:22:29.817]the actual measures that you're using on the survey.
- [01:22:32.670]Can you talk about how you're measuring depression, anxiety,
- [01:22:35.850]self-efficacy and so forth?
- [01:22:37.650]Yeah, yes, of course.
- [01:22:38.520]So our anxiety and depression measures
- [01:22:40.110]are a short form of a clinical anxiety
- [01:22:43.647]and depression measure.
- [01:22:44.942]So each, I think there was five questions for depression,
- [01:22:48.030]five for anxiety.
- [01:22:49.050]Coping efficacy was actually
- [01:22:52.350]three sub skills in that one.
- [01:22:54.120]So it's a problem associated coping,
- [01:22:56.580]so can I cope with problems?
- [01:22:58.800]Can I cope with emotions?
- [01:23:00.182]I think all, all of the scales are self-report
- [01:23:04.742]in that way.
- [01:23:05.640]So it's all self-reported data.
- [01:23:07.530]So of course there is limitations there, of, you know,
- [01:23:09.547]I don't want to seem like a negative Nancy.
- [01:23:12.690]I don't want to be,
- [01:23:14.003]I don't want to tell these people
- [01:23:15.660]that I'm actually depressed.
- [01:23:16.860]So, I am gonna answer these a little bit more positively.
- [01:23:20.250]So of course we have to include that in here, limitation.
- [01:23:23.370]But I think alongside that
- [01:23:26.026]with the stories and the actual interviews
- [01:23:28.500]that we're doing with them,
- [01:23:30.030]it allows us to really kind of suss out
- [01:23:32.310]where that those differences lay.
- [01:23:33.810]And of course,
- [01:23:35.470]there's some human error in there as well, too.
- [01:23:38.190]So we're coding the stories
- [01:23:39.794]and that's all done by human,
- [01:23:42.302]human factors.
- [01:23:43.590]And then we're
- [01:23:44.550]relying on statistics
- [01:23:45.570]to help us see if there's differences.
- [01:23:47.520]But yeah,
- [01:23:48.810]hopefully they answered your question a little bit.
- [01:23:50.970]I don't know.
- [01:23:51.803]Yeah, yeah it did.
- [01:23:53.220]I'm from UNMC,
- [01:23:54.240]so we do a lot of work on, you know,
- [01:23:56.730]measuring all of these types of issues
- [01:23:58.890]and we've been doing some work with,
- [01:24:00.734]with collecting stories and narratives
- [01:24:03.150]of meat packing workers,
- [01:24:04.394]of stakeholders in various communities.
- [01:24:07.080]And so we're trying to think about these things as well.
- [01:24:10.200]We've also recently just finished up data collection from
- [01:24:13.830]over 700 meat packers.
- [01:24:15.810]Wow.
- [01:24:16.643]Across the state.
- [01:24:17.476]And so we've got a lot of quantitative data
- [01:24:19.320]that we'll be able to share.
- [01:24:21.166]That's awesome.
- [01:24:21.999]Here, hopefully soon.
- [01:24:23.307]Yeah, that's awesome.
- [01:24:25.819]We, we're doing a conference next April
- [01:24:28.890]that has a lot on meat packing.
- [01:24:30.720]Yeah, we're leading a panel, remember?
- [01:24:33.035](all laughing)
- [01:24:35.460]We'll talk about it.
- [01:24:36.575]Yeah.
- [01:24:40.862]Are there, there more questions?
- [01:24:43.050]I just had one more. Have you reached out to folks at UNMC
- [01:24:45.960]to try to engage them in your study?
- [01:24:48.030]Yeah, we're currently trying to engage with them.
- [01:24:50.790]We have to,
- [01:24:52.419]the way that it's worked with UNL'S IRBs
- [01:24:55.002]is that we're,
- [01:24:55.942]we're needing to work with other institutions IRBs as well.
- [01:24:57.780]So we're working with UNMC'S IRB
- [01:25:00.060]to try to integrate and get approval
- [01:25:01.950]to share our recruitment information, so,
- [01:25:04.470]that's through personal networks.
- [01:25:06.420]If I know someone at UNC,
- [01:25:07.580]so a couple of the physicians,
- [01:25:09.030]then it's fine with our IRB,
- [01:25:10.470]but if it's a message from the top down essentially,
- [01:25:13.710]then it needs to be approved through.
- [01:25:15.030]So there's just some red tape barriers
- [01:25:17.880]we're working with right now.
- [01:25:18.990]A couple of the hospitals in town,
- [01:25:21.150]in Lincoln here rejected our applications to,
- [01:25:26.330]to recruit in their hospitals.
- [01:25:27.990]So we've been dealing with some of that as well.
- [01:25:31.027]So just is, you know, it's research right.
- [01:25:33.930]So, but yeah,
- [01:25:35.374]so we're working right now trying to get into UNMC as well
- [01:25:37.290]as St. Elizabeth's.
- [01:25:40.680]Have you been to One Work?
- [01:25:43.695]I don't think so, no.
- [01:25:44.895]It's one-
- [01:25:46.319](indistinct)
- [01:25:47.520]Yeah.
- [01:25:48.353]Place to go.
- [01:25:49.619]Yeah. Awesome.
- [01:25:52.695]So yeah, yeah, we're,
- [01:25:53.639]we are working
- [01:25:54.555]also try to do recruitment as well
- [01:25:56.130]in other states in the Great Plains as well.
- [01:25:57.587]'Cause we do want to get outside of Nebraska as well,
- [01:26:00.814]with our recruitment efforts.
- [01:26:02.610]So working with some hospitals in Texas
- [01:26:05.603]as well as Montana, Eastern Montana,
- [01:26:08.415]and then North Dakota as well.
- [01:26:10.170]So trying to really diversify
- [01:26:12.013]the 40 participants that we can pay.
- [01:26:14.331]Try to get as many as we can from a,
- [01:26:17.370]a representative sample from the Great Plains.
- [01:26:22.935](distorted audio)
- [01:26:26.203]I wanna thank all of you for sharing with us
- [01:26:28.680]what you're doing and
- [01:26:30.060]I really feel like we could have a long, long conversation
- [01:26:32.644]and maybe we can do a Zoom thing together sometime,
- [01:26:36.133]you know,
- [01:26:37.290]an update, in another year or something
- [01:26:39.270]to find out where you're at with your projects.
- [01:26:41.463]So thank you so much.
- [01:26:43.099](clapping)
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