NIH Turns to Art Amid Pandemic

In 2020, the NIH faced a problem. It wanted to study the mental health impact of the covid pandemic, but was worried that typical recruitment strategies would not work. The idea of placing an image of the covid virus on a recruitment flyer was not appealing.

Officials with the NIH National Institute of Mental Health approached Ray Hart to help solve their dilemma. They asked Rayhart (the mononym of artist Ray Hart) to contribute his art to recruitment materials. The flyer used Ray Hart’s art to culturally tailor and humanize recruitment for its study on mental health.

You can find RayHart here.

Image credit: Ray Hart provided copy of NIH recruitment flyer.