Using art, letters, stories, and poetry, tell us: how might we build public health systems that are trustworthy? 

Building healthier communities, working for a better tomorrow, and ensuring the well-being for all begins with trust. Trust is a cornerstone of public health, influencing an individual’s willingness to seek and maintain care, follow medical advice, engage in advocacy and preventative measures, participate in sustainable practices, and improve individual and community health, ultimately impacting health promotion, disease prevention, mental wellbeing, sustainable change, and the like. 

Creativity—through art, letters, stories, and poetry—offers building trust with public health. It can be used to reimagine, transform, and understand how we all collectively shape the public health we want, allowing us to explore the narratives, including adversities and aspirations, which enhance our relationship with public health and its systems.

Trust in public health can be accomplished with trust-building solutions across generations, including ideas addressing hurdles, ideas identifying potential solutions, ideas that are genuine, ideas that foster connections in inclusive ways, and ideas that are impactful and resonate with all. Creative outlets can serve as the bridge between us all—individuals, communities, and health professionals and scientists alike—fostering understanding and connection in ways that statistics and policies alone cannot achieve. 

What builds and restores trust? Is it empathy, love, accountability, and genuine communication? What fosters mistrust in public health? Is it a lack of transparency, failure to communicate well, limited diverse voices? Creative expression can help us unpack these questions and envision solutions. 

So, using art, letters, stories, and poetry, tell us: how might we build public health systems that are trustworthy?

Through creativity, whether as an individual, public health professional, or community member or leader, we can reimagine how public health engages with individuals, communities, and professionals, addressing issues like medical mistrust, systemic inequities, and misinformation.

Let creativity lead the way—because trust, once built, once restored, or once reimagined together, can transform the health of individuals, communities, and the world.

Note: At this time, submissions will only be accepted if written in English. Submissions should not have been previously published and should be properly formatted with little to no grammatical errors. Submissions will be accepted via Submittable. Please do not include any identifying information in your uploaded file.

If you have questions about this contest, how your submission will be judged, or if your submission answers the open call question, please visit our website or contact us via email at info@light4ph.org. Disclaimer: Entries not related to creating healthy spaces and place will be disqualified.

*** Artificial Intelligence (AI) Guidelines: Although AI represents a new and powerful tool, at LIGHT, we strive to maintain a magazine rooted in community and personal narratives. In other words, AI can be used as a tool, but it should not be the primary creator of your submission.

Entries into the LIGHT open call that utilize AI must:

1) not exceed 10% utilization as determined by AI detection software

2) credit and make explicit the use of AI in the submission

Authors of submissions that utilize AI and fail to meet both requirements will be notified, and their submission will be withdrawn from consideration. Please review this blog post for more information regarding our AI guidelines.

Before submitting to LIGHT, you will be asked to acknowledge and agree to the following:

• I assure that the work I am submitting to LIGHT is original work, owned by myself, OR I have partial ownership of the work and am submitting the work with consent from the person or people who also have ownership of the work. I, or we (if submitting with others), take full responsibility of its veracity falling to myself or my team as authors.
• I attest that the work I am submitting has not been previously published elsewhere (an exception is if it has been published on a personal website, blog, Spotify, etc.).
• I give LIGHT the right to edit, duplicate, and publish my creative work in their open-access literary journal and disseminate this work for promotional reasons via any type of media to a broader audience.
• I understand LIGHT reserves the right to revoke and remove any submission from the open call for submissions, prize winnings, and acceptance of publication that may be deemed harmful, slanderous, malicious, or AI-generated (exceeding 10%), regardless of how well created or written it is.
• I acknowledge that I will not receive any compensation for LIGHT's use of my creative work, except that of a monetary prize if my creative work places as a top submission (see LIGHT’s open call prizes for more details).
• I understand that I cannot make a claim as a violation against usage rights against LIGHT related to the use of my creative work. If submitting concurrently, I will withdraw my submission if it is accepted elsewhere.
• I understand that I own all rights to my submission post-publication, and I will credit LIGHT as the original publisher if I choose to publish my creative work elsewhere.
• If my submission is selected to be included in the LIGHT magazine, I recognize my name will be published with it.

Confidentiality Kindly note the privacy of individuals should be protected. Public health practitioners who write about individuals and communities should alter identifying details and characteristics.