M8. Discussion: The Next Outbreak
Bill Gates takes to stage on TED Talks to discuss one of the often-overlooked topics in our community security planning, preparing for an epidemic outbreak. In this discourse, Gates points out that the next global catastrophe is likely to be a virus epidemic as opposed to war. The argument bases on the fact that countries have immensely invested in nuclear and war prevention than they have done on epidemic prevention strategies.
Bill Gates refers back to the 2015 Ebola virus infection that claimed about 10000 lives in West Africa (Gates, 2015). He attributes the heroism of medical practitioners, the nature of the virus as it is not transmitted through air, and the fact that it was not common in urban centers to have been the reasons that helped stop the epidemic. Gates, therefore, suggests that there is a need to invest in preventive systems that would ensure that there is always a team of epidemiologists ready to go when there exist a case of an epidemic outbreak (2015). The teams would help resolve issues realized during the 2015 Ebola outbreak where problems incurred included lack of proper surveillance, diagnostic procedures, and treatment programs developed. Ebola is a disease transmitted through contact taking about 21 days in its incubation stage. It is such slow incubation rates that make it less contagious since once the symptoms are out the patients are bed-ridden.
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Gates recommend an integrated response system that includes both the medics and the military. The two departments if well-financed and work closely can help have in place robust systems of health capable of utilizing the tools of technology, research, and human resource to develop necessary response systems. The proposal uniquely offers solutions to failures in logistics, skills, and capacity that have always limited the implementation of robust health systems.
According to the World Health Organization (2018), investing in global health equity offers a unique opportunity for globally advanced economies to leverage on the low costs of preventing a global catastrophe than having to mitigate its effects once it happens. Investing in developing world addresses the inadequate health systems for prevention of epidemics acts as an initial step in leveraging global health equity on epidemic prevention.
M9: Plastic pollution is Personal
Natalie Fee’s revolution is remarkably insightful. While we often prefer single-use plastics, the majority of us are not appropriately enlightened as to the damage they have on our environment (Fee, 2017). Through Natalie’s insights, it turns out clearly that the majority of us are responsible for the torrid degradation of our environment just from the seats of our toilets. I believe Natalie’s presentation offers us an opportunity to engage in a behavioral change approach to protecting our environment.
Social marketing strategies have always been influential in the realization of change. Natalie chose to adopt strategies that would allow producers of single-use plastics reinvent their approach and use degradable materials for purposes of a sustainable environment. According to Natalie (2017), campaigns against single-use ear buds have worked following her online campaigns and petitions titled “switch to stick”. Other ideas on social marketing strategy would include introducing reusable shopping bags in retail stores to help eliminate single-use plastics globally.
The connection of our toilets to our water bodies has seen the aquatic ecosystem impacted significantly by the direct discharge of plastics from our sewer systems. Reducing single-use plastics flushed through our toilets would be on our food chains where we reduce the amount of toxic plastic getting into the food chain and our household tables as meals (Natalie, 2017). The connectivity between environmental and population health remains anchored on contamination and diseases. Majority of infections and health diseases are a result of poor environmental health. Environmental hazards such as pollution, food contaminants, and farm chemical are responsible for the degradation of both environmental and population health.
M10: Recipe for Health Equity
Dr. Anthony’s testament on the TED Talk themed momentum was a reflection of her journey from a disadvantaged Caucasian background to achieving success in her career as a health practitioner. In her statement that all odds were against her, she means to refer to her background and circumstances in which she grew up. In her childhood, society remained skeptical of the opportunities in education and mainstream careers for women, especially women from colored communities (Anthony, 2015). The question about where she was going to college proves critical in shaping Dr. Anthony’s trajectory in life since it gave her the needed motivation that she had the potential to pursue an education at the highest level in the country. The question proved as an influencer to a Detroit-raised Caucasian young woman of her background.
The interesting part of Anthony’s discussion is the influence of the built environment on her mindset; it is through the view of the possibilities, the exposure, and the difference she could bring back to her community that influenced her pursuit of some of the challenging careers in life. Apart from being an MD in vet medicine holder, Anthony attended and trained at Harvard as a public health professional before later attending med school as a gynecologist. Her training as a public health officer and a gynecologist allows her to effectively perform as a deputy director as she is capable of influencing policies on matters that affect mothers and pre-term birth cases.
Dr. Anthony’s recipe for health equity includes collaboration, research, education, empathy, and empowerment. My favorite component in achieving health equity is collaboration. Collaboration would require that key stakeholders take part in determining the direction of the health sector not only from a policy perspective but initiating discourses that influence social mindsets. Collaboration would call and improve on investments along these quarters of engagement.
Dr. Anthony continuously through her career has managed to translate her passion into action by taking a job at the NHI as a Deputy Director. Her involvement with healthcare policies on the need for changing preterm delivery outcomes has helped in defining her role in the organization. According to Anthony (2015), the role of NIH in protecting health and public health remains on ensuring that healthcare policies are made on the back of evidence from evidenced studies.
M11. The Hospitals of the Future
The advent of technology and its subsequent integration in healthcare has led to improved health service. Among the health services, one can access from home include medical social services, nursing services, companionship, physical, and speech therapy. Technology has made it possible for such services to remain accessible as patients can easily arrange for appointments with their health providers and facilities.
Many would prefer to have their loved ones and the elderly to receive healthcare services from the comfort of their homes. Accessing health services from home has significant benefits that include saving on costs, improving patient acceptance, reducing stress, and reduce burnout among health practitioners. As envisioned by Neils van Namen (2018), there is a need to bring down the walls of traditional medicine. The aspects of traditional medicine that include hospitalization of patients suffering from chronic diseases and nursing services can be reviewed so that they can be done from patient homes. Technology can be used to deliberately retrace back services to be delivered at home. According to Neils van Namen (2018), patients and healthcare providers can rely on technology to facilitate logistics and connection to facilitate service delivery. The fate of future healthcare remains intertwined with technology. As communication technology advances, so does the ease of access and alternatives to traditional healthcare. The future of healthcare shall focus on convenience and efficiency in service delivery. As such, areas such as telemedicine and remote and mobile health facilities shall remain as the major concepts that would define healthcare space as we progress into a new age of technology in both medicine and communication. Three futurist coordinate healthcare trends that can be realized as we enter the new phase of innovation shall include mobile doctors, telemedicine, and lowering of health insurance as the majority of jurisdictions shall adopt universal health cover schemes.
M12. Social Progress Index
The G7 countries are described as the leading countries categorized under the IMF as advanced economies. According to Green (2014), the organization of the G7 includes 7 nations, Japan, the UK, France, Canada, Germany, the US, and Italy. The above countries are considered to be representative of about 60 percent of global wealth and the highest GDP compared to other global countries. Green (2014) stated that, US has the highest GDP per capita in the G7 with $15.68 trillion with a population of 316 million people. Out of the $15.68 trillion, 17.9% is spent on health care making the US among the leading countries that invest in the healthcare sector.
The components of social progress index applying to public health sector include foundations of wellbeing, basic human needs, and opportunity. These aspects remain relevant to public health infrastructure in that they ensure that governments invest in healthcare sectors as a responsibility to ensure citizens access the opportunities, basic needs, and reach to foundations of wellbeing.
The US has continued to spend a higher percentage of her GDP on healthcare without achieving a higher social progress index. The higher GDP can be used to improve healthcare if the government were to invest these amounts in subsidizing the cost of healthcare to make it universally accessible. A country such as Germany that spends a lower GDP percentage on healthcare has been lauded to offer far much better health services to her citizens compared to the US. Investing in population health and healthcare systems has been termed as conduits to conduits to controlling effectiveness and costs in the healthcare sector ( Green, 2014). Such investments have been regarded to be a form of leverage on health equity hence ensuring that countries develop sustainably. A holistic approach to health spearheaded by investment in the sector plays a significant role in establishing social sustainability.
M13. Childhood Trauma
The partnership study between CDC doctors and Kaiser resulted in Adverse Childhood Experiences study. The public health study had an outline of findings that indicated that Advance Childhood Experiences (ACE) increased the risks of early mortality in children who experienced early childhood trauma.
ACEs include traumatic experiences that children undergo at their early stages of growth based on the environment in which they are brought up, such experiences can include growing up experiencing domestic violence, neglect, abuse, and at times being brought up with parents undergoing mental illnesses or substance abuse and dependence (Burke, 2014). Dr. Burke’s inference to dose-response refers to the degree of exposure of a child to ACE particularly examining how such experiences increases would correspond to chances of developing heart condition or depression. Dr. Burke holds in her argument that ACEs are treatable and beatable through a multidisciplinary; an example of such a multidisciplinary approach is the need to involve early screening for diagnoses, and to development of treatment approaches.
M14. Poverty and Obesity
The collaboration in the video partners is a result of the growing rates of obesity and diabetes. The source is relevant especially when it comes to public health as it not only informs the population of the need to take action when it comes to healthy eating habits and how to keep diabetes out of our households through healthy living (Riegelman & Kirkwood, 2019). The cheap calories are unhealthy calories campaign captures the nature in which urban dynamics of economic differences have led to unhealthy food environments. The urban food desert crisis has been a result of the high pricing of fresh foods while deliberate lowering of unhealthy high-calorie foods (Riegelman & Kirkwood, 2019). The Food deserts are hence common in low-income neighborhoods where it has increasingly become difficult to have access to fresh foods groceries. It is the lack in option for better food access that has contributed significantly to higher rates of obesity in the low-income populations in the country.
From the video, there is a need to campaign against deliberate starvation of the low-income areas of healthy foods. According to Riegelman & Kirkwood (2019), local administrations in collaboration with public health administrators should work towards building healthy communities through the opening and subsidizing permits for green food groceries in low-income neighbors. The community in the US that would put the selected campaign would be the Southern Bronx Community in New York City. The community is selected as it has one of the highest diabetes and obesity prevalence in the country yet it lacks healthy food sources. The campaign is a good one as it is quite informative.
M15: Digital Future
Ms. Kendry’s observation of the urgent need to create early warning systems for infectious diseases anchors on the idea that they are the largest global threat facing humanity. In her introduction, we can infer that technology and indeed mobile phones can be utilized as a relevant public health tool when integrated among other existing approaches (McKendry, 2015). I concur with the statement since mobile phones have penetrated the human population increasing internet access and connectivity globally.
The death of a 2-year-old with Ebola in West Africa as the first case of Ebola provided the global health institutions with the need to developing early warning systems for infectious diseases. As in the case, the early warning systems would have made it possible to diagnose and possibly treat the child of the virus before it could spread.
System thinking as an approach in managing infectious diseases is identified by Rachel as the onset measure to developing early warning systems. According to McKendry (2015), using mobile phones as a tool in system thinking, the discussion identifies how its sophistication and advancement can help in the identification and reporting of early signs of infectious diseases in urban and remote areas as it allows public health practitioners to harness the increased connectivity to gather global data. As is the case of Ebola, here is the Feedback loop.
Exposure- symptoms-Diagnosis-Confirmed diagnosis-Treatment
The interconnectivity of factors in positive feedback mechanisms allows for the implementation of early warning systems.
References
Anthony, R. S. (2015, May19). Recipe for Access Putting Public in Public Health. Ted Talk . Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywQJGnzQKGs
Bill Gates. (2015, October 26). The Next Outbreak We're Not Ready. Ted Talk . Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gates_the_next_disaster_we_re_not_ready/discussion?nolanguage=en.Bizarre+Discoveries+in+MinesBizarre#t-225073
Burke, N. (2014, September 19). How Childhood Trauma Affects Health Across a Lifetime. Ted Talk Video . Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/nadine_burke_harris_how_childhood_trauma_affects_health_across_a_lifetime?language=en
Fee, N. (2017, December 19). Why Plastic Pollution is Personal. Ted Talk . Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJiQt9ASSNg
Green, M. (2014, October 19). What the Social Progress Index can Reveal About your Country. Ted Talk . Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/michael_green_what_the_social_progress_index_can_reveal_about_your_country?utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare
McKendry, R. (2015, June 9). Going Viral Digital Future of Public Health-HBO Docs. You Tube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRK7KKQH9Ck
Namen, N. (2018, May19). Why the Hospitals of the Future will be your Home. Ted Talk. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/niels_van_namen_why_the_hospital_of_the_future_will_be_your_own_home#t-220830
Riegelman, R. & Kirkwood, B. (2019). Public Health 101 Improving Community Health (third edition). Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning
World Health Organization (WHO). (2018). Ground zero in Guinea the ebola outbreak smoulders undetected for more than 3 months . Retrieved from https://www.who.int/csr/disease/ebola/ebola-6-months/guinea/en/
