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The Southern Oral History Program<\/a> launches a major research initiative \u2014 to collect oral histories in rural North Carolina communities that inform health care research, practice and policy. <\/em><\/p>\n Maddy Kameny had read research about the prejudice that African-American women often face when expressing their health concerns. But she found it nonetheless harrowing to hear a Dunn patient\u2019s personal account.<\/p>\n \u201cShe had extremely high pain levels, but her pain was not taken seriously,\u201d recalled Kameny, a master\u2019s candidate in the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. \u201cWhen she demanded that her situation be investigated more seriously, they found she had a bad gallbladder that had to be removed. It had been bad for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n The patient\u2019s story is one of 40 captured by UNC-Chapel Hill graduate and undergraduate students last summer as part of a major new interdisciplinary research initiative of the Southern Oral History Program (SOHP)<\/a> in the College of Arts & Sciences.<\/p>\n Since 1973, SOHP has brought history to life through more than 6,000 interviews with Southerners, from politicians to activists, business owners to millworkers, educators to artists. Archived online<\/a> and at Wilson Library\u2019s Southern Historical Collection<\/a>, the interviews offer a rare glimpse into the lived experiences of people and the South over nearly a century.<\/p>\n The new research initiative aims to uncover how Southerners have experienced health care and interacted with the medical community throughout their lives. The stories will be used to inform research, practice and policy by helping health care providers develop more effective interventions, policymakers improve the health care system and patients experience better health.<\/p>\n \u201cWe dare to hope that we can use history to help save lives,\u201d said SOHP Director Rachel F. Seidman.<\/p>\n Cardiologist\u2019s research sparks collaboration <\/strong><\/p>\n SOHP\u2019s focus on health began with a phone call Seidman received in 2016 from UNC cardiologist Ross J. Simpson Jr., who leads SUDDEN, a research program investigating sudden unexpected death among adults ages 18-64 that occurs outside of a hospital.<\/p>\n \u201cOur key finding was that sudden death is common. In Wake County, it accounts for 10 percent of all deaths under 65,\u201d Simpson said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been developing a data set trying to understand why people die suddenly and unexpectedly so that we can develop interventions.\u201d<\/p>\n Simpson and colleagues looked across campus for help, eventually discovering the SOHP.<\/p>\n \u201cRoss asked if oral history could help,\u201d Seidman recalled. \u201cI was so struck by the notion of a cardiologist asking me if we could help him. I said, \u2018I don\u2019t know but let\u2019s find out.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The two looked first to SOHP\u2019s archives. Simpson and then-SOHP Director Malinda Maynor Lowery received a 2017 UNC Fostering Interdisciplinary Research Explorations Grant to fund the effort. The research team identified nearly 200 SOHP interviews containing health-related narratives and mined a subset to learn more.<\/p>\n Several themes emerged that offered insights into why sudden death might occur. Interviewees described a lack of proactivity in seeking medical help, a sense of surrender to what they felt was inevitable illness and death, and one-way communication between doctor and patient.<\/p>\n While the research revealed interesting anecdotes, it pointed to a need for focused oral history research that dug deeply into questions previous researchers did not ask about people\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n Personal experiences fuel the flame<\/strong><\/p>\n At the same time Seidman began collaborating with Simpson, events in her own life brought the issue of health care to the fore. Her daughter, a public policy major at UNC with a passion for rural health care, interned at CommWell Health. The community health clinic opened in 1977 to serve migrant workers but now provides comprehensive health and wellness services across southeastern North Carolina.<\/p>\n At her daughter\u2019s urging, Seidman visited the clinic\u2019s Dunn location. \u201cI was so impressed by the work they were doing and their holistic approach to health care,\u201d Seidman said.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Seidman\u2019s brother-in-law developed leukemia, battled it for more than a year and died. \u201cWhile I was in the hospital with him, I was struck by that experience of having to advocate for your loved ones,\u201d she said. \u201cI realized how difficult it must be to advocate across cultural, racial and class boundaries.\u201d<\/p>\n With credentials in history, not health or medicine, Seidman reached out across campus to faculty and graduate students from nursing, public health, social medicine, medical anthropology and other disciplines to serve on an advisory team that would inform the research project.<\/p>\n![\"From](\"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2018\/09\/2018SummerResearchers-1.jpg\")
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