After completing this course, I realized that digital humanities is more than just digital tools, it’s also about critically engaging with those tools and resources to analyze, interpret, and present human culture, history, and experiences daily in today’s society. Examples include text analysis, data visualization, digital mapping, digital databases, and digital archiving. Engaging with and integrating technology uncovers new insights and approaches to understanding human culture and history. Digital humanities is mainly collaborative with computer design, computer science, and data science.
Author: dnevitt (Page 1 of 2)
Problem statement: Health Disparities in St. Louis
- Observation, Background, and Context: St. Louis is one of the most segregated metropolitan areas in the United States. Racial and ethnic health inequities seem to be what we are currently facing in St. Louis County and the city of St. Louis. This includes equitable healthcare access, mental health disparities, heart disease, and cancer disparities. Social determinants play a key factor in the quality of healthcare. Health is affected by education, housing, access to health care, food security, and employment. The questions that arise from my observations are, what are the primary factors contributing to these health disparities, how does the division between St. Louis County and St. Louis City impacts public health efforts, How does environmental factors contribute to health inequities in St. Louis, Are there any barriers in accessing mental health services? Are there any adequate resources available to address health disparities in St. Louis that people may not be aware of, and if so how are healthcare providers, community organizations, and programs collaborating to reduce and promote these disparities? What interventions/tools are in place to address them, and how effective are they?
Key issues: Racial segregation, socioeconomic inequities, mental health care.
Approach: I would focus on engaging with the community, implementing accessible health programs, upholding policies, ensuring funding is available, and addressing social determinants of health. Racial disparities regarding health disparities, heart disease, cancer, and mental health have been well documented in the St. Louis county as well as the St.Louis region. This project will help determine what community proposed strategies will reduce these health disparities. The method I intend to use would be a distribution map or website. I also wouldn’t mind creating an organization to help others better understand its impacts on local individuals in the community.
Below are some facilities and places that offer resources regarding mental health, health access, food security, job employment and more!
- See google my maps
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From Dredd Scott to Ferguson: St. Louis History in Black and White is a digital oral project produced by St. Louis Public Radio and hosted by Don Marsh. This oral project features stories, interviews, and historical contexts. The primary goal of this project is to present an oral history of racial relations, the black experience, and civil rights in St. Louis from 1847 to 2016. The project highlights significant events, everyday experiences, and civil rights struggles that have influenced the city of St. Louis. The project’s intended audience may include residents of St. Louis, educators, students, and even the general public. This platform is easily accessible and can be used in the community, classrooms, discussions, etc.
Racial relations in St. Louis have had a long and complex history that continues to exist in today’s society. Researchers discovered that racism has persisted across generations, often hidden in plain view. Through this timeline, this project brings attention to major events as well as hidden histories. The St. Louis History in Black & White project uses a combination of oral history interviews, audio clips from the radio show “St. Louis on the Air” program, and an interactive timeline to document the city’s racial history. This project utilizes digital platforms to present these materials, making them accessible to the public through a mobile-friendly website. This allows users to navigate and explore personal narratives, historical events, and content related to civil rights and race relations in St. Louis easily. Although the website didn’t mention how long the project took to complete, it does mention the St. Louis History in Black & White project was originally launched in 2011. The project was relaunched in 2016 with added historical content, technical improvements, a timeline, and a need to promote awareness and empathy.
The project’s strengths include its accessibility in digital formatting, its educational value, and its ability to capture live experiences, and history over time, While I wouldn’t say this project had any weaknesses, others may want more interactive features or youth voices included. Before now, I knew very little to nothing about the Dredd Scott case. I’ve always heard things about the St. Louis area from my parents to teachers, to the news, and other sources. But on the other hand, The St. Louis History in Black & White project offers a deeper look into the racial dynamics that have long shaped the St. Louis region. What stands out the most to me is how it connects together personal stories, historical milestones, and local geography to show the fight over civil rights, equity, and justice. This project gives contexts to more recent events, such as the 2014 killing of Michael Brown Jr, in Ferguson., as well as previously known information. While that tragedy is well known, it is part of a larger history of systemic segregation, inequality, and resistance that is still going on to this day in the St. Louis area.
The data set I reviewed was The Tombstone Transcription Project. The tombstone Transcription project is a lasting tribute to our ancestors. They will transcribe tombstone inscriptions and have that work archived for the future generations and made easily accessible to all. The tombstone project coordinators are Debra Crosby and Rebecca Maloney. In this project there was a poem titled The Recording Of A Cemetery by Thelma Greene Reagan. The poem highlights the importance of remembering the dead and preserving history. This ensures the that the future generation can remember and honor those who have passed.
Data set profile:
- Who is credited as the creator and/or contributors of this data set? Who are they? They are mentioned above.
- What are the sources of their data? records of tombstone inscriptions, genealogical societies, gravestones/headstones.
- Why did they create or compile it? They created it because many of the gravestones at cemeteries were becoming difficult to read and have already fainted making it hard to identify. This was due to time and weather.
- How has it been used? It has been used to identify ancestors and preserve cemetery data for the future generations. It also can be used in genealogical societies.
- What format is the data set in? Although I’m not sure what format this data set would fall under, I would think a database or spreadsheet.
Data set evaluation:
- Take a look at the data itself. How have they structured it? What fields have they chosen? What effect might that have on how it can be used? The chosen field is historical ancestors grave sites. It can be used to analyze and identify as well as genealogical purposes.
- Read the creators’ description of the data set. Have they described the choices they made in cleaning the data, and if so, how? What effect might those choices have on the data? N/A
- Consider the creators’ identities and goals in creating the data set. How might those things have shaped the data, either intentionally or inadvertently? I honestly don’t believe that their identities contributes this data set, however their goals yes. Thelma’s primary goal was to preserve gravestone inscriptions both intentionally and inadvertently.
- What would you use this data for? Preservation and historical purposes
Since my major is nursing, I’ve decided to tackle the health disparities in St. Louis. The health disparities problems facing St. Louis are emphasized by two factors: division between the city and county and extreme racial segregation. St. Louis is one of the most segregated metropolitan areas in the United States. Racial and ethnic health inequities seem to be what we are currently facing in St. Louis County and the city of St. Louis. This includes equitable healthcare access, mental health disparities, heart disease, and cancer disparities. Social determinants play a key factor in the quality of healthcare. Health is affected by education, housing, access to health care, food security, and employment. This is highly important because it can have a significant impact on our daily lives. The questions that arise from my observations are, are there any adequate resources available that people may not be aware of, and if so how are healthcare providers, community organizations, and programs collaborating to reduce and promote these disparities? What interventions/tools are in place to address them.? To approach this, I would focus on engaging with the community, implementing accessible health programs, upholding policies, and ensuring funding is available. The method I intend to use in my project would be a distribution map or website. I also wouldn’t mind creating an organization to help others better understand its impacts on local individuals in the community.
The two documents I chose to compare were Alton’s encyclopedia 1880 and 1906. My hypothesis is that the population would significantly increase from the mid-1850’s to early 1900’s. Hence some manufacturing developments were established in 1903, my hypothesis was correct. The population was approximately 12,000 in 1857. In the 1900’s the population in Alton had risen up to 14,210. The visualization I would use to test my hypothesis would be like a timeline graph.
This questionnaire was quite interesting. I didn’t expect to get as many incorrect answers as I did. The feedback I received at the end stated, “You are wildly over-confident in your predictions. Without changing your total accuracy at all, you would have scored better if you had been massively less confident in your predictions.” I can say that in some questions, for example, the hello question, I did feel 50/50 on whether AI was capable of doing that.
I watched the film Mrs. Davis. It starts off as a nun destined to find the holy grail. Sister Simone and her ex-boyfriend Wiley make an effort to destroy a powerful artificial intelligence (AI) known as Mrs. Davis. Mrs Davis is capable of destroying the algorithms for us all. She reshaped policies, brought an end to conflicts, and addressed global hunger. AI algorithm ran the world at that moment of time, and as a result, Sister Simone and Wiley had to experience mysterious dilemmas as they searched for the holy grail.
The AI presented in Mrs. Davis kinda reminds me of god. She influences people’s decisions and assumes that people will be willing to follow an AI’s guidance without any doubts and influence their decisions. The conflicts made between people and technology were Mrs Davis’s manipulation and her algorithms used to influence and shape our human behavior.
My conclusion of the show was that there was a conflict between humanity, faith, and technology. Simone is battled by faith and Mrs. Davis the artificial intelligence is the technology. After watching this it has made me question whether or not free will is something people want. Since AI has become more integrated into our daily lives, we must be aware of the potential effects it has on our choices without us realizing it.
The Cahokia Ar App is an accessible app for both the Monks Mound Tour and the Grand Plaza Tour. With this app, you can take images throughout the historic site and examine ancient dwellings artifacts, landscape features, and more. The app has more features for $5. The app has audio you can listen to if you prefer audio as well. They recommend listening with headphones only. What does the app do so well?
The app enhances the audience/visitor’s experience at Cahokia Mounds. It has augmented reality that digitally reconstructed the mounds helping us visualize what the site originally looked like. The Cahokia app enhances access to visitors, tourists, researchers, historians, etc. The groups it excludes are those who are unable to visit in person, those with physical disabilities, those without access to a smartphone, those who aren’t experienced with technology, and even those who don’t purchase nor have headphones. In my opinion, I think it’s a great app without the additional costs. The only thing I don’t agree with in regards to the app is that it requires you to actually be there.