A New HIP Public: A Community-Engaged Project to Invest in Low-Income Hoosiers' Health & Wellness

Pamela Napier, Herron School of Art and Design

David Craig, Religious Studies

Luis Garcia, Herron/Visual Communication Design

Amrita Datta, Herron/Visual Communication Design

Medicaid-eligible Hoosiers face health barriers due to the personal responsibility structure of the Healthy Indiana Plan (HIP). In this community-engaged project, IUPUI faculty and students from the School of Liberal Arts, Department of Religious Studies, and Herron School of Art and Design, engaged HIP insurers and diverse congregational partners with the aim to strengthen public interest in HIP and the shared responsibility of supporting continuous health coverage for better wellness and care. During the Fall 2020 semester, two Visual Communication Design MFA students designed and facilitated a series of community outreach sessions to gather vital input from the community’s citizens. The data from the sessions identified appropriate and meaningful ways to communicate and support low-income Hoosiers’ health through personal assistance and community relationships. Employing a People-Centered Design approach, which focuses on including community partners and stakeholders throughout the creative problem-solving process, enabled the team to design with people rather than for them. The students utilized their skills in Design Facilitation to engage diverse groups of people in collaboratively and creatively sharing stories, generating ideas, and evaluating solution directions. The students worked with participants using multiple internet-based platforms for civic engagement, creating virtual formats for engagement that were participatory and inclusive. This work is the first phase of a larger project for the 2020 Chancellor’s Community Fellowship. The research outcomes will inform the second phase, in which the insights and concepts will be implemented into an interfaith "Get HIP" campaign.


Napier Bringle-Poster_FINAL.pdf