Current events can be used in classrooms to help students connect class topics to real life situations and develop critical thinking skills. These articles are readily available, easy to adapt for a range of classes and student levels, and students find them valuable.
The Big Events of 2021-2020 (the COVID-19 pandemic, economic crisis, and rising sociopolitical inequality) converged in the United States at a time of preexisting, systemic societal vulnerabilities and weaknesses. This set the stage for an interconnected, complex web of effects — some good, some bad — on people’s health and well-being.
Among these, some of the more immediate effects are the potential for a large increase in high-risk populations such as people who use drugs or sex workers. This may be due to institutional, normative, and experiential changes in response to the Big Events that lead to these groups’ increased risky behaviors, or to the fact that their numbers increase due to these events themselves.
The longer-term effects are more difficult to predict, but may include the decline of effective public health programs in response to budgetary and political pressures. These are likely to have a negative impact on the ability of communities to protect their health, and may lead to worse short and long term outcomes for various diseases and conditions. In addition, the long-term consequences of some Big Events — such as wars or revolutions — may have profoundly harmful health impacts.