New project launch: NYC Needs Assessment and Action Plan

The NYC Long COVID Needs Assessment and Action Plan (NAAP) is a major research and advocacy project designed in partnership with S4HI’s Long COVID Justice NYC chapter. The NAAP will focus on people with Long COVID from highly affected communities whose needs have largely been overlooked, including monolingual Spanish speakers, people living with HIV, trans and non-binary people, and children/youth.

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New project launch: Listening for the Long Haul

Listening for the Long Haul is an oral history project created by Strategies for High Impact in partnership with History Moves at University of Illinois-Chicago, which received a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Together, we are training and supporting COVID-19 longhaulers to interview and narrate their own experiences. We will then create digital humanities resources for distributing those stories and bringing about narrative change.

“Listening for the Long Haul is a truly collaborative project, in which chronically ill and disabled people work together to tell our stories, with full control over our narratives and how they’re presented. It’s in the truest spirit of disability justice: ‘Nothing about us without us!’ ”

— S4HI co-founder Gabriel San Emeterio

Public programming and a new website for the project will be launched in 2024.

NOW UP: Navigating COVID and Long COVID as Long-Term HIV Survivors - webinar recording

Strategies for High Impact and our Long COVID Justice project have released a video recording for our webinar collaboration with the Reunion Project: TRUST YOURSELF & TAKE CARE OF EACH OTHER: Navigating COVID and Long COVID as Long-Term HIV Survivors.

About the webinar: The ongoing COVID-19 crisis has brought significant loss and challenges for people living with #HIV—including higher rates of #LongCOVID, which can be a wide range of new, returning, or ongoing health problems triggered by COVID infection. How do we care for ourselves and one another as we continue to face risks and realities of COVID-19 and Long COVID?

The webinar featured panel testimonials and real-life accounts from people living with HIV including Gabriel San Emeterio, S4HI cofounder, as well as keynote speaker Dr. Michael Peluso (UCSF), along with a robust community discussion.

Gabriel San Emeterio, S4HI cofounder, is featured speaker at Millions Missing protest in DC

S4HI cofounder Gabriel San Emeterio recently traveled to Washington, DC to speak at the Millions Missing 2023 protest. Millions Missing is an annual protest that raises awareness and demands support for chronic illnesses like myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (MECFS) and Long COVID, and is organized by chronically ill activists from ME Action and other groups.

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People with Long COVID Urge NIH: Fund Vital, Comprehensive Long COVID Treatment Research, Not Debunked, Dangerous Approaches

Three years into the ongoing COVID pandemic, an impassioned, growing group of patients and advocates for Long COVID and associated diseases (LCAD) is urging NIH to prioritize full funding of strategic research on therapeutics and to immediately halt plans to fund two problematic studies in the initial set of trials under the RECOVER Initiative.

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Strategies for High Impact (S4HI) Launches Public Health Strategic Communications Program on Long COVID and Associated Conditions, With Support From Balvi Fund

S4HI’s diverse and experienced team of public health strategists, communicators, researchers and digital journalists will develop data-informed communication and narrative strategies, provide clear, reliable and actionable patient-led information and perspectives, and support communicators living with long COVID and associated conditions. Many team members are living with long COVID, associated conditions or other chronic conditions.

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