Graphic Public Health

As we confront the challenges of emerging diseases, environmental health threats, and gaps in health equity, medical professionals need versatile communication tools that help people make informed decisions and engage them in constructive conversations about the health of their communities. This book illuminates the power of comics to meet that need.

Graphic Public Health demonstrates the range and potential of comics to address topics such as immunization promotion, outbreak prevention, gun violence, opioid addiction prevention, and climate change. It features the work of acclaimed cartoonists Ellen Forney, David Lasky, and Roberta Gregory, pieces by up-and-coming artists, and comics that Meredith Li-Vollmer produced as a communications specialist for Seattle’s public health department. More than a collection of cartoons, this book connects comics with fundamentals of health communication and discusses why the form can be uniquely effective for these purposes. Each chapter focuses on the use of graphic public health in the context of four specific goals: health literacy, risk communication, health promotion, and advocacy. Li-Vollmer also includes guidance for practitioners getting started in creating comics for any form of public information, and especially for public health.

Practical and purposeful, Graphic Public Health is a clarion call for the current era and an invaluable resource for public health professionals and advocates, scholars of comics and graphic studies, and fans of the graphic medicine genre.

Meredith Li-Vollmer is a communications specialist for Public Health—Seattle and King County, Washington, and Clinical Assistant Professor of Health Systems and Population Health at the University of Washington School of Public Health. She is also on the faculty of the Northwest Center for Public Health Practice. Her comics have been published in The Stranger, MUTHA, Illustrated PEN, and the American Journal of Public Health.

Meredith Li-Vollmer is a communications specialist for Public Health—Seattle and King County, Washington, and Clinical Assistant Professor of Health Systems and Population Health at the University of Washington School of Public Health. She is also on the faculty of the Northwest Center for Public Health Practice. Her comics have been published in The Stranger, MUTHA, Illustrated PEN, and the American Journal of Public Health.