Day 14(1/16/18) *Copenhagen/WHO Euro*

We're on the official schedule! (close to the bottom line)

So many bikes!

Day 14! Today we spent the whole day at the WHO Euro to work on our individual projects regarding the Gateway. I know that on the day 13 journal I said I would explain the project more on day 15, but I think I'll just describe it now since that's what took up most of my day:) So each "expert group" in our class (the groups we worked with for group presentations) is working together to try to find an answer about healthcare based on a question we formed together. Since we got to choose the question, we investigated using the Gateway website in order to try to come up with an answer and also to give the developers of the website feedback on their creation.

So my group's question is this: what might contribute to the observed trend that eastern European countries experience significantly more alcohol-related deaths than mediterranean countries? To investigate, we used the Gateways website, and an activity packet prepared by the website creators, in order to observe data from several countries, experiment with sorting of the data, and create graphs relating to possible answers. It really felt like we were professionals in a working team! We sat in the VIP room with a lovely view over the river that flows through Copenhagen, in our groups, laptops in hand, discussing findings, potential confounding variables, reactions to data, critiques/strengths to the website, and ways to proceed with our data analysis and presentation. What did our data find? Well, I'll leave that part for tomorrow, when we get to present it :)
Overall, the work day was a great way to experience what it's like to work in a project-based career, in which you're not given an especially clear guideline, and you get to take the assignment under your own thought framework, with guidance from supervisors-I loved it. I have always enjoyed doing my own thing, making my own plan, and exploring, so after this day I again was very mentally tired from the engaging work, but, again, as my mom says, it was a good tired!

I should mention that I had the privilege of briefly meeting with Isabelle Yordi Aguirre, the director of Gender and Health at the WHO Euro. Isabelle had previously worked on creating recommendations for the treatment of women in correctional settings in the WHO Euro member states, and this included the treatment of pregnant women(which is what I'm studying for my individual project for this class and my senior project for my major)! She was very interesting to speak with, as she informed me that women in correctional settings in the EURO member states actually were found to be on average safer than when they were in their out-of-correctional environments, due to the high prevalence of domestic violence and prostitution among their population. This was very sad to learn, and I was actually quite surprised to learn that according to that statistic, perhaps the US and European incarcerated female populations are more similar than I might have thought...since in the US most women in prisons are victims of some sort of violence (rape, prostitution, trafficking, etc.) as well. Isabelle gave me several very useful resources to look at, and said that she would soon put me in touch with her colleague who works specifically with prison healthcare, so I'm interested to see if this initial similarity in the populations holds true in other categories (prevalence of non-violent offences, amount of prison time, prenatal care, social support, and others). It was very generous of her to share a moment of her time, and it is thanks to Julie that I was able to get in touch with her, so I am extremely grateful for Julie's efforts in coordinating for us to meet with each other!

Ok, onto the evening. My roommate, Anna L., studied abroad in Copenhagen last year, and she suggested that we climb the "spiral tower" for a great view of the city, so Olivia, Hannah, and I found it after leaving from the WHO Euro, and were excited to climb to the top! One issue...it was closed for the "winter"😕. However, we had a lovely stroll around Nordhavn, which is where this "spiral building" is located, people watched from a coffee shop, and watched the boats. We'll still visit the parliament building tomorrow, which I checked, is open year round, and also has a great view of Copenhagen! After the walk, Olivia, Aiden, and I went to a yummy dinner place for gluten-free pizza, came back to the hostel to spend more time in the cozy lounge, and now I'm off to bed. I really like this lounge...it has a fireplace, oldies music, gentle lighting, and many cozy chairs/couches. Perhaps I'll remember the design for my future apartment/house!😊

Ok goodnight!
-Anna

P.S. There are so many bikes here, no wonder I have yet to see an overweight person! (Ok, I have seen one, but just one, and Copenhagen has a large population size!)

We found the spiral building (turns out it's a church!)

Exploring Nordhavn :)