Erin Demo is a senior in the Bachelor of Science in Public Health program in Community Health and serves as a teaching assistant within the Epidemiology Department at the IU Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health. Throughout the COVID-19 public health crisis, she is continuing her work as an intern at the IU School of Medicine doing safe sleep research and delivering resources to ensure babies have a safe environment to sleep. Additionally, Erin served on the Indiana State Department of Health (ISDH) Call Response team at the beginning of the outbreak as a way to give back to the community.
Question: Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? What are you studying? When do you expect to graduate?
Answer: I am an undergraduate and I will graduate this May with my BSPH in the Community Health from the Social and Behavioral Sciences Department. The program itself is perfect because I’m able to graduate in three years. In high school, I lived near IU Northwest, and I was able to take the right mix of advanced courses and AP classes. Additionally, I am the daughter of two nurses, and I have always seen how being a clinician, and the healthcare system, took a toll on them. My dad was an ICU nurse for 17 years, and my mom is a labor and delivery nurse. Over the years, I saw how it affected them. I knew I didn’t want that.
In high school, I had a class where we acted as disease detectives, and I enjoyed it. I chose to learn more about it, and that’s when I discovered it was a whole field. That’s really cool! As I took the community health classes, I realized that I liked the community-based work. After I graduate, I’ll be pursuing my Masters of Public Health degree at George Washington University with maternal and child health as one of my concentrations and health policy as the other.
Question: Can you tell us a little about your internship experience?
Answer: Through my internship, I serve in a section of the children’s health services research department at the IU School of Medicine. My internship is funded through a grant from Kohl’s, which helps provide cribs and safe sleep packages to qualifying women in Marion County who do not have a safe sleep environment for their baby. The program provides a safe sleep bundle which includes a Pack ‘n Play or bassinet, a pacifier, a swaddle, and a book teaching the importance of babies sleeping alone, on their back. Right now, during the COVID-19 public health crisis, I have been delivering these safe sleep bundles. Due to COVID-19, we have adjusted the program to reduce the number of home visits by implementing the delivery of the bundle through a drive-through pick-up program and transitioning the safe sleep education program to an online platform.
Question: How did you support the Indiana State Department of Health during the onset of the COVID-19 outbreak?
Answer: We received an email from one of our professors that the call center needed help the first week that the hotline was going to be advertised to the public. The Indiana State Department of Health was expecting a large call volume, and they wanted to be ready to meet the high demand. During my shifts, I found that a lot of people were calling because they didn’t know what the coronavirus was. Many of them were distressed by the media reports or things they have seen on Facebook. I worked as a member of the crisis management team and directed individuals to the resources available to them such as the virtual visits through their primary care physicians and answering safety questions about visits to places like the grocery stores. It was great to serve as a resource to individuals and to help spread the word about flattening the curve.
Question: Why did you decide to help?
Answer: This is truly a once in a lifetime opportunity. Since I have experience as a customer service representative, a public health education, and outreach experience, I truly thought that this was the perfect culminating experience for me to finish my senior year and help during the virus outbreak and pandemic.
Question: How did your public health education help prepare you for this role?
Answer: A lot of our classes center on outreach, education, and health communication in general. Those were very beneficial. Through those classes, I learned how to convey information in serious manner without escalating the caller’s fear or adding to their stress. Those were all skills I learned through previous classes.
Through other classes, I learned about the social determinants of health, which was very helpful in determining how to communicate with each caller individually. These skills helped me deliver information in a way that the caller could understand. The classes I took with Charity Bishop, Tess Weathers, and Thomas Duszynski were all invaluable in helping me understand health communication. Helping at ISDH was great. I truly do not know any other experience or opportunity that would offer such firsthand, combined experience.
Question: What do you wish IUPUI students knew about COVID-19?
Answer: I wish they realized that they’re not invincible. I see people in my age bracket on social media – Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram – still throwing parties and still hanging out with friends. It’s a very selfish mentality. A lot of people my age think they’re invincible, and even if they aren’t showing symptoms, they can’t comprehend that they can still be spreading the virus. I truly want people to take this seriously and realize that this is bigger than them. With so many cases being asymptomatic – that’s scary. I’ve gotten to the point where I will call out people on social media to take social distancing seriously.
Question: Is there anything else you would like to share?
Answer: I think Indiana University has done an amazing job, especially Fairbanks, with the advising resources being online. FSPH Student Services staff – Kayla, Leah, and Amelia – have done an amazing job letting us know that resources are still available. I’ve received a number of emails that have let me know I can reach out if I am going through anything, even if it’s not school-related. I think the university’s done an amazing job encouraging social distancing and I think that’s very, very beneficial.
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