Archival Methods for Public Health Research Training
Learn how to apply historical methods in public health research, from archival analysis to oral history.
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Course Description
Historical context plays a critical role in understanding today’s most pressing public health challenges, from health inequities to environmental risk and unsafe products. Yet the methods and insights of the history discipline remain underutilized in public health research and practice.
Archival Methods for Public Health Research Training is an in-person, applied workshop designed to introduce participants to the core methods of historical analysis and how they can be integrated into public health research. The training provides a practical foundation in working with historical materials and developing rigorous, context-driven insights.
Over two intensive days at Columbia University’s Irving Medical Center, participants will learn to navigate archives, conduct oral histories, analyze historical sources, and identify long-term patterns in both qualitative and quantitative data. The course emphasizes hands-on techniques, critical interpretation, and the development of compelling narratives from diverse historical materials.
In this training, you will:
- Understand how historical scholarship is produced and applied in public health contexts
- Develop strategies for locating and working with archival materials
- Gain practical experience conducting and analyzing oral history interviews
- Analyze historical sources across different time periods and formats
- Identify long-term trends and contextual drivers of public health outcomes
- Learn methods for organizing and managing historical data
- Strengthen your ability to build clear, evidence-based narratives
- Examine the opportunities and risks of digitization and AI in historical research
This course is ideal for:
- Graduate students in public health, history, or related disciplines
- Postdoctoral fellows seeking to expand their research methodologies
- Researchers looking to incorporate historical context into their work
- Professionals interested in health equity, environmental health, or long-term population trends
Whether you are new to historical methods or looking to deepen your existing approach, this training offers a structured and practical way to integrate historical analysis into your research.
Course Prerequisites
There are no formal prerequisites for this training. Participants from a range of academic and professional backgrounds are welcome.
What You Will Learn
By the end of this training, participants will have a working knowledge of core historical research methods and their application in public health contexts. You will gain the skills needed to identify, analyze, and interpret historical sources, while developing the ability to incorporate historical evidence into rigorous and compelling research.
By the end of the workshop, participants will be familiar with the following topics:
- How historical scholarship is produced
- Common pitfalls in analyzing historical material
- Strategies for approaching material produced in different eras than our own
- How to locate historical archives
- What to do once in a historical archive
- How to conduct and analyze an oral history interview
- The basics of analyzing various historical sources
- Methods for organizing and keeping track of historical data
- Ideas for incorporating historical material into grants and publications
- Narrative techniques
- The potential and dangers of digitization and AI methods
Instructors
Merlin Chowkwanyun is a historian of public health whose work focuses on community health, environmental health regulation, racial inequality, and health-related social movements. His research examines how historical context shapes public health outcomes and policy.
He is the author of All Health Politics Is Local: Battles for Community Health in the Mid-Century United States and is currently working on a second book that reassesses approaches to health using social determinants. He is also co-principal investigator of a National Science Foundation–funded project, ToxicDocs.org, a digital archive of millions of documents related to industrial toxins.
At Columbia, Professor Chowkwanyun teaches courses on health advocacy, mixed methods, and the history of public health. He has received multiple teaching honors from the Mailman School of Public Health, including awards for Excellence in Teaching and Innovation in Teaching.