Intro to Public Health - Blog 3

Hello again!

This week everyone in the introduction to public health class will be blogging about the same topic. We were all assigned to read an article from the MMWR weekly titled “Ten Great Public Health Achievements – United States, 1900-1999”. The article talks about exactly what the title implies: the greatest achievements of the 20^th century in the field of public health. The purpose of this article was to emphasize the major contributions of public health and the huge impact that they have had on health in the past one hundred years. Some of these accomplishments listed include vaccination, control of infections diseases, decline in deaths from heart disease or stroke, and the recognition of tobacco use as a health hazard (something I touched on in my blog last week!)

One of the achievements that really resonated with me was the improvement of motor vehicle safety. The death rate due to motor vehicle accidents has dramatically decreased over the past century. The improvements that we have seen include safer cars, safer highways, and a major movement to shift personal behavior. The article mentions increased use of seat belts, use of child safety seats, wearing of motorcycle helmets, and decreased prevalence of drinking and driving. One of the reasons that I thought that this specific accomplishment was so interesting was because it was mostly due to a change in public opinion. I’ve spoken with both of my parents about this before and they have always said that when they were my age most of the cars didn’t even have seatbelts and even if they did it was not a priority of the driver or any of the passengers. This has always been so strange to me because ever since I can remember, putting on my seatbelt is the first thing I do when I get into a car. This change in attitude can be attributed to the steep decline in deaths related to motor vehicle accidents.

But, according to the CDC website, motor vehicle related injuries are the leading cause of death for people ages 1-34. This shows that while great strides have been made, there is still a lot that can be done. One of the greatest concerns today is teenage drivers. Teenagers, compared to adult drivers, are much more likely to speed, ride in a car with an intoxicated driver, or drive drunk. As a teenager myself, I have seen that this in fact is true. In my opinion, this is something that needs to be addressed and focused on more heavily.

As for other achievements in the realm of public health that were not mentioned in the article, I think that increased knowledge about the extreme importance of mammograms is a big one. When I was in 8^th grade, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. Luckily, the doctors found it extremely early and were able to remove the cancer without having to do a mastectomy. But had it not been for her strict discipline in getting a mammogram every 6 months, who knows what would have happened. Public health is all about prevention and that is exactly what a mammogram is intended to do!

I hope everyone enjoyed my blog this week! Make sure to check back next week for another post! 

Intro to Public Health - Blog 2

Hi again! This week I’m going to be discussing an article that the Washington Post recently published about smoke free laws and their beneficial effects.

Here is a link to that article:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2010/09/15/AR2010091505209.html

This article talks about research that has shown how smoking bans have led to less children being hospitalized with asthma and other respiratory related problems. Other studies have also shown that the rate of heart attacks in adults to go down. The study, which was conducted in Scotland, showed that asthma related hospitalization of children has been gone down 13% each year after 2006, the year that the ban was enforced. However, before 2006, the rate was increasing by 5% a year. This study has shown us that smoke free laws can bring immediate and tangible improvements to our community. The article also touches on other states and cities that have experienced similar results. 35 states and Washington D.C. all have banned smoking in workplaces, restaurants, and bars.  This article is clearly touching on an important public health issue. Even though the amount of smokers has significantly decreased, it is still a huge issue in our country that not only affects the smoker but also the people around them. The article reported a staggering fact that 40% of all children who go to the hospital for asthma attacks live with smokers. What separates the application of these smoking bans from being a medical issue is that a doctor may be the one who is individually treating each child suffering from asthma but it is the job of the public health professional to stop that child from ever having to go to the doctor in the first place. He or she is helping the community as a whole by implementing a preventive measure such as a smoking ban.  The studies that this article talks about are observational studies. More specifically, they are case studies. The researchers picked a specific time frame, in this case January 2000 to October 2009, and looked at the evidence from each case and pulled out the information that was “relevant.” In this case, that evidence was how many children were admitted per day with asthma related health problems.

I chose to discuss this article because I think it is a really good example of the kind of work that is done in the field of public health and the good that can come from it. I also chose to speak about this because it touched on something that I lived through not too long ago. I can remember back to when New York City first implemented a ban on smoking in restaurants and bars. It was a huge controversy for a long period of time but once passed, was considered a huge victory for the health of New York City citizens. Even though I was much younger, I can remember sitting in restaurants and smelling the smoke from the smoking section wafting over to our table. The smell always made me feel so nauseous. After the ban was in place, the difference in restaurants was extreme. While there is still a lot of work to be done, it is clear from this article that in recent years, great progress has been made in the reduction of smoking related health problems! 

Intro to Public Health - Blog 1

Hey everyone!

My name is Dani DiPersia. I was born and raised on the Lower West Side of New York City and am currently living in Baltimore as a freshman at Johns Hopkins University. This semester I’m taking Introduction to Public Health and will be posting on this blog at least once a week on some of the various aspects of Public Health. I had never even heard of the field of Public Health until earlier in the year when I went to an open house in New York for students who had been accepted to the Class of 2014. There, I met two current students who were both majoring in Public Health. I was intrigued by what they both told me and decided to follow up on my curiosity when I came back to visit Hopkins on accepted students day in April. My interested was only furthered after attending the open house for the major and was what prompted me to sign up for this course. Officially, my major is undecided but I am leaning towards Public Health and I figured that this survey course would give me a broad and general understanding of the subject and would help me in my decision.

For those who may not know, the CDC defines public health as “to promote health and quality of life by preventing and controlling disease, injury and disability.”  It focuses more on the population of a certain community rather than a single individual. The work that public health professionals engage in is more behind the scenes than doctors who treat patients. Another difference is the amount of government funding it receives. The money that is pumped into health care is exponentially larger than the money that public health gets.  

One of the first questions I was asked whenever I told anyone I was going to be attending Hopkins was, “Oh, so you’re going to be a doctor??” That was probably the one and only thing I was sure of when I came here. I don’t want to be a doctor. But what I do want is to be able to help people in some way and I feel like Public Health is one of the ways to achieve that goal. Whether it be creating preventive measures to help the greater community or teaching children in a rural village about living a sanitary lifestyle.

So far, I have really enjoyed the first couple of classes. Even though it was a huge amount of information being thrown at us for an hour and fifteen minutes each time, the material was extremely interesting to me and very engaging. One thing that I think is really cool is that even though it’s a fairly large class, a large part of the class ends up being discussion based. It’s not just a boring and dry lecture. The students have been asking thoughtful and challenging questions that have really pushed the entire class to think. It is honestly my favorite and most interesting class this semester and I look forward to learning more and more about public health and to posting on this blog each week!