TEACH Across Alabama: Training, Educating, Advising, Connecting, and Helping Alabamas Healthcare Workforce and Healthcare Consumers Navigate the COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2 Global Pandemic

The COVID pandemic has highlighted the need for the long-overdue dissemination of appropriate, timely, and accurate information to the 125. With the rising tide of misinformation and the safety of the public in jeopardy, it is imperative that people are trained to find the most accurate information from reliable sources. Empowering individuals, community leaders, and engaged citizens with the tools to uncover accurate information lays the foundation for trust so that a sustainable web of understanding, information, and knowledge can be built. Through strategic involvement of specific individuals, we will construct a network where individuals power the dissemination of these tools with a far-reach throughout the entire state of Alabama. We will bring this self-sustaining network to life through two specific aims. First we plan to build a statewide network of healthcare providers to distribute information to patients and families. We will train physicians and medical students at our current state-wide clinical sites on the resources related to COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2 by the NIH, NLM, and CDC. Training physicians and medical students who are actively seeing patients allows for an opportunity to disseminate information to the public from a trusted, reliable source. Secondly, we will build a local network of medical students to distribute and train individuals. We will mentor medical students in the use of these tools mentioned above. Students will disseminate information learned in their training to the public via specific community venues and classes. 88toring students to teach the community how to use resources from the NIH, NLM, and others in community forums builds trust and community.