Day 5(1/7/18) *Atlanta*
Day 5! Today is my mom's birthday! Too bad I can't celebrate with her, but we'll have a great time celebrating once we're back together :) In the meantime, she's with my dad leading a trip to Australia/New Zealand, so I'm sure they're having a great time and that my dad is treating her to a lovely birthday celebration.
Today was mostly a work day (I worked on stuff for this class and with my individual expert group on our presentation) until 4pm when we heard from the first expert group-the "Analytical" group.
One item that I worked on today was the "scavenger hunt" assignment. We all submitted facts from various public health websites to Dr.Legler and she chose a few, assigned questions to find these facts to the class, and we had to search the websites to find the answers. It was a very interesting assignment, because it forced me to really dig deep into all of the websites. As someone who is easily distracted, I clicked around a lot on my way to the answers to the questions and found some interesting(though quite sad circumstanced) efforts in place at the CDC, WHO, and relating to the SDGs and MDGs.
*key:
CDC: centers for disease control and prevention
WHO: world health organization
MDG: millennium development goals (goals set forth by the UN to help the poorest populations)
SDG: sustainable development goals (expansion of the MDG project)
The analytical group presentation was also quite interesting, and it gave me lots of ideas for our presentation coming up in a couple of days. The group mainly taught us about the differences between high-income country deaths and death factors, and low-income country deaths and death factors. For example, I was surprised to hear that for both categories, stroke and heart disease are the highest causes of death, and dietary intake and high blood pressure are the highest risk factors. It's interesting how we see a lot of "us" and "them" in healthcare, the "us" being the middle/upper class individuals who make up most of the healthcare providers and policy makers, and the "them" being those who perhaps fall below the poverty line or live in poverty-stricken areas. It's nice be reminded of the fact that despite the plethora of differences that humans celebrate, we do share many things in common as one family-these death causes and death factors being two of them! Further down the line of causes of death we did find that low-income countries have a higher prevalence of communicable disease, and high-income have a higher prevalence of non-communicable disease, which would make sense given the fact that the high-income countries likely have more sophisticated sanitation than the low-income ones(unfortunately).
Watching these speakers, and now the group presentation, is making me feel more and more frustrated about how unfair it is that I have access to so many health resources while other fellow human beings in other parts of the country and world suffer without them. I'm discovering more and more that public health is really where I want to work-perhaps not in a desk job, but more on the ground, bringing aid to countries where medical professionals perhaps wouldn't otherwise want to go (for various reasons...maybe relating to the quality of life there, or pay scale, or practicality of bringing one's family along). Either way, I'm finding that perhaps the best way for me to help people is to bring them healthcare where they otherwise would go without it. That idea might change as I learn from more perspectives on health inequities, but at the moment, that's the effect this experience is having on me. It also is making me realize even more all of the good things that I have in my life...how can I ever complain about, for example, having to wait for an entire 30 minutes to see my doctor, when I should be thankful that I have access to care essentially whenever I should need it? This course is expanding on what I experienced last summer as the public health intern at HCMC working with in-need populations...it is so important to pause and realize what we have, and not what we want, because some people would be overjoyed to have what we take for granted, and shame on us for ever complaining about it!
Goodnight!
-Anna
Today was mostly a work day (I worked on stuff for this class and with my individual expert group on our presentation) until 4pm when we heard from the first expert group-the "Analytical" group.
One item that I worked on today was the "scavenger hunt" assignment. We all submitted facts from various public health websites to Dr.Legler and she chose a few, assigned questions to find these facts to the class, and we had to search the websites to find the answers. It was a very interesting assignment, because it forced me to really dig deep into all of the websites. As someone who is easily distracted, I clicked around a lot on my way to the answers to the questions and found some interesting(though quite sad circumstanced) efforts in place at the CDC, WHO, and relating to the SDGs and MDGs.
*key:
CDC: centers for disease control and prevention
WHO: world health organization
MDG: millennium development goals (goals set forth by the UN to help the poorest populations)
SDG: sustainable development goals (expansion of the MDG project)
The analytical group presentation was also quite interesting, and it gave me lots of ideas for our presentation coming up in a couple of days. The group mainly taught us about the differences between high-income country deaths and death factors, and low-income country deaths and death factors. For example, I was surprised to hear that for both categories, stroke and heart disease are the highest causes of death, and dietary intake and high blood pressure are the highest risk factors. It's interesting how we see a lot of "us" and "them" in healthcare, the "us" being the middle/upper class individuals who make up most of the healthcare providers and policy makers, and the "them" being those who perhaps fall below the poverty line or live in poverty-stricken areas. It's nice be reminded of the fact that despite the plethora of differences that humans celebrate, we do share many things in common as one family-these death causes and death factors being two of them! Further down the line of causes of death we did find that low-income countries have a higher prevalence of communicable disease, and high-income have a higher prevalence of non-communicable disease, which would make sense given the fact that the high-income countries likely have more sophisticated sanitation than the low-income ones(unfortunately).
Watching these speakers, and now the group presentation, is making me feel more and more frustrated about how unfair it is that I have access to so many health resources while other fellow human beings in other parts of the country and world suffer without them. I'm discovering more and more that public health is really where I want to work-perhaps not in a desk job, but more on the ground, bringing aid to countries where medical professionals perhaps wouldn't otherwise want to go (for various reasons...maybe relating to the quality of life there, or pay scale, or practicality of bringing one's family along). Either way, I'm finding that perhaps the best way for me to help people is to bring them healthcare where they otherwise would go without it. That idea might change as I learn from more perspectives on health inequities, but at the moment, that's the effect this experience is having on me. It also is making me realize even more all of the good things that I have in my life...how can I ever complain about, for example, having to wait for an entire 30 minutes to see my doctor, when I should be thankful that I have access to care essentially whenever I should need it? This course is expanding on what I experienced last summer as the public health intern at HCMC working with in-need populations...it is so important to pause and realize what we have, and not what we want, because some people would be overjoyed to have what we take for granted, and shame on us for ever complaining about it!
Goodnight!
-Anna
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