This week, the School of Collective Intelligence hosted Graciela Trujillo-Hernandez, a PhD candidate at the University of Rochester, for a lecture titled “Catching More than Colds: How Parents and Culture Shape Children’s Understanding of Illness”, within UM6P Campus in Rabat.
In her talk, Trujillo-Hernandez explained how children interpret illness through their own experiences and the beliefs, explanations, and values shared by their parents. Drawing on research conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, she presented findings from surveys and parent–child conversations that shed light on how families combine scientific reasoning, emotional reassurance, and cultural traditions when discussing health.
Her work, focusing on Puerto Rican families in Rochester (United States), illustrated how children learn to integrate multiple perspectives from science to spirituality within their cultural contexts. The session offered the UM6P community an engaging opportunity for reflection and dialogue on the links between culture, cognition, and health communication.