Education.

Achieving universal primary education is in my mind, one of the most important Millennium Development Goals. I believe that education is truly one of the best ways that we can change the world. If people are educated they be more able to have good jobs and to help their community. Education is really the best way to promote change.

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Education is also a way to promote good health. The more education someone receives the higher the likelihood that they will be better equipped to take care of themselves. They also know more about how disease spreads and will be able to help stop that spread. 

Education is also helpful in family planning. People that are less educated tend to have more children. Those children are then more likely to be less educated creating a horrible cycle of uneducated people who also tend to be poor. The more educated a woman is the more likely she is to be in control of her fertility cycles and to know to use some form of contraception.

People often assume that education can be increased simply by building schools. Infrastructure is obviously necessary but it is not the only part. How do you get teachers there? And even more importantly, how are you supposed to pay your teachers if your students are too poor to pay for school? It would be ideal if once the schools were built there would be no more additional costs and all students could just attend for free. It would be even better if parents could get financial help if their children attend school.  But as you know, the world is not ideal.  Teachers need to be paid, parents don't have the money to send their children to school, schools don't have the supplies they need, and children don't have a way to get to school. The list could go on and on. There are so many problems with getting universal education that do not have simple fixes.

Overall, education is a key part of public health. Without education, promoting health is nearly impossible. So while it may not seem like education is related to health, it is a key part of making sure people have the ability to have good health. 

Poverty and Hunger.

Poverty and hunger are two of the biggest issues plaguing the world today. These two issues effect literally every community on the earth. No one is immune to having poverty and hunger in their societies. That is truly terrifying if you think about it. The fact that even in affluent places like Salt Lake City, where I live, there are still billboards that advertise that 1 in 5 children are at risk for hunger. That is seriously concerning to me. 

It is generally understood what poverty is but there are some specific scientific ways to describe poverty. In the United States a family of 4 is considered to be below the poverty line if the total household income is under $23,550 per year. The poverty line for a single person is earning less than $11,490. Globally it has been established that if a person earns less than $1.25 per day then they are in poverty. That means that if the US followed global poverty standards anyone that made more than $456.25 was not in poverty. I think this is a good indicator of how great a disparity there is between the developed and developing countries. 

It should also be stated that most developing nations do not have the resources to assist those living in their country that are needy. If you are only making $400 per year then survival is going to be extremely difficult especially if you are not getting any financial support from your government. If you are barely surviving on your income then how are you going to be able to have good health. If you live in poverty then making any sort of strides towards better health is nearly impossible. Most people can only afford to even think about their health when they are sick and even then, they do not have the resources they need to get healthcare. 

Hunger is obviously a huge public health concern. If you do not have enough to eat or you are not getting the proper nutrition from the food you are eating then it is guaranteed that you will not be healthy. It is estimated that around 850 million people are suffering from hunger or under nutrition. That is about 1 in 8 people globally.  This hunger can stem from poverty but it can also come from conflicts like war, natural disasters, or famine.

People that live in poverty or are hungry are highly likely to be unhealthy. If you can not afford basic necessities the likelihood that you will be worrying about your health is very low. Poor and hungry people do not have the physical resources to think about health and all the stress from being poor usually means they do not have the mental resources to think about their health either. Health is heavily impacted by people's economic class.

Global Health Issues.

So I told you in my last post that my ideal role in public health is to be involved in global health. I think that most people know that health around the world is not all that great but I don't think that everyone knows why it is so poor and what the actual issues are. I will be honest and say that until a little while ago I wasn't very aware of what exactly the issues are so I don't blame anyone for not knowing. 

I think the best way to start looking at what issues are really contributing to poor global health is to look at the Millennium Development Goals.

The Millennium Development Goals were set by the United Nations in 2000. These goals were set with the idea that they would be achieved by 2015. We have a long way to go with the goals but good progress has been made. 

1. Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger

2. Achieve Universal Primary Education

3. To Promote Gender Equality and Empowering Women

4. To Reduce Child Mortality Rates

5. To Improve Maternal Health

6. To Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria, and Other Diseases

7. To Ensure Environmental Sustainability

8.To Develop a Global Partnership for Development

Not all of these goals are explicitly related to health but I think that all of them can be applied to general health outcomes. I also think that they address the biggest health issues currently plaguing the earth. I will go into more depth on each of the goals later but I think that they provide a good framework from which to start examining global health issues.

In addition to these issues that are being worked on by the Millennium Development Goals there are issue like sanitation, war, disasters, access to healthcare, population, and corrupt governments that can lead to poor health. These issues are all so complicated that there is really no simple solution.  Many people believe that more money is the best and only solution but that just is not true. You can throw money at problems all day long but unless there is a good infrastructure in place to receive and distribute the funds then no significant progress will be made.

My role in public health.

Now that we have established what public health is, let me tell you a little bit about what I hope to do in public health. 

I have been extremely blessed to be able to do a fair amount of traveling through out my life, and some of those places have been in extreme poverty. Seeing that poverty and seeing how horrible the health of those people are made me want to do something about it. Most of the things I wanted to do were not very plausible and would have left me living in the poverty I was trying to help. But luckily for me, Public Health is a credible field that I can make a career out of and help people.

Once I graduate with my undergrad and hopefully go onto get my Masters in Public Health I want to work in international health promotion. My ideal career would be to be a program manager for a health focused non-profit. I LOVE traveling and would be perfectly happy with traveling often but I am not sure that I want to live internationally. But if that is what I need to do to help progress my career and to do that most good then I am definitely willing to do it.

Let me explain a little bit more about precisely what I want to do. I will use my two biggest interests as examples. I am very passionate about vaccines and how helpful they are in preventing infectious diseases. I would be thrilled if I could work for an organization that worked doing immunizations in developing countries. I am also extremely interested in Maternal Mortality. I know of many programs that I would be amazing to work for that help find ways to prevent maternal mortality and promote women's health.

I hope that helps explain a little more about what exactly I want to do and where I see my career going. Public Health is such a broad field that sometimes it is hard to know exactly what people mean when they refer to public health as a career.