blog assignment #4: public health and the law

For this week's blog assignment, we had to read an article about Mary V. Kirk vs board of health case. Mary V. Kirk, a resident of the city of Aiken, had anesthetic leprosy, which is infamous in its contagious nature, and she was asked to move out of the city. To this, she claimed that she is "a woman of culture and refinement" and that she cannot live in such a dirty and confortable pest house where African Americans with smallpox were isolated. Besides, the pesthouse is right next to the city's dumping ground where foul order arose. However, the board of health insisted on her isolation because leprosy is dangerous to the community and the pesthouse is only "the last resort." Also the board of health argued that they would repair the city hospital and that they would build a nice cottage just for her; therefore it is fair for the community and for Ms. Kirk. They also argued that although the dumping ground is 100 yards away from the pesthouse, unhealth odors do not arise from it. After hearing both sides, Judge Aldrich restrained board of health's order, but board of health appealed. Ms. Kirk ended up submitting to board of health's action. The article then mentions six constitutional law governing public health regulations. However, after careful observation of this case, tells us that this is an exception.
I think the difference between quarantine and isolation is that although you are usually forced to be quarantined and isolated, but i think with quarantine there is more of negative connotation and resistance of the person being quarantined. Although board of health mainly decides who should be quarantined and who should not be, i think just like Kirk vs. board of health case, it should be determined by the court (even though it can be costly, it will be more fair to both sides) i think the judge should balance the rights of individual and of the community; I believe there's more err on the side of protecting the rights of the community because rights of the community consists of the rights of the many individual belong to the community

Blog Assignment #3: U.S performance on various health measures

For this week's blog assignment, we were asked to read an article on the perforce of the united states on various health measures compared to the other 29 OECD countries. These various helath measures were divided to the total 5 criteria: health resources, health spending, health status, health-care activities, and risk factors. I have always known that the amount of money U.S spends on health care is a lot, but I never knew that its health care status is actually a lot worse than that of the other countries. Statistics that U.S recorded the highest among the OECD countries are MRI units per milion population, total spending on health care, helath spending per catpita, total spending on pharmaceuticals per capita, and funny and obvious enough, obese population.I still remember when I first came to America from Korea, I was surprised by the number of obese people on the street. Very proud of our public health efforts, U.S recorded the lowest on tobacco consumption. Among the health measures, i was very stunned by how high America's infant mortality is. Although U.s did not record the lowest,it's definitely higher than the OECD average. Because of improvements in medical care these days, I expected infant mortality of America to be very low, but it's still higher than the OECD average. On the sidenotes, (this is not related to public health) I was also surprised by the number of medical graduates of the U.S. U.S also had fewer number of medical graduates than OECD average; the number of practicing physicians and of practicing nurses were lower than OECD average. As a premed student, I just don't understand why it is so hard to get into medical schools and become a doctor in the U.S when we have significantly fewer number of practicing physicians, nurses and of medical school graduates. We comparatively rated low in doctor consultations per capita. Though it's important to find intelligent people for jobs like doctor or nurse who deals with one's health and life, but in terms of public health, wouldnt it be more advantageous to accept more medical school applicants? I was also surprised by the number of MRI and CT scanners units per per million population in a good way! When I first read these two i thought of secondary prevention. As I mentioned earlier in this blog post, "obese population" seemed very obvious to me and i found it least surprising. It is so obvious considering typical greasy American diet, and you can see so many obese people on the street as well. Among these health measures, i thought, as I mentioned already, MRI and CT units per million population show the greatest potential future impact on thepublic's health; public health is concerned with the health of the general public. We have learned public health officials approach three ways to improve the health of the general public: primary prevention, secondary prevention, and tertiary prevention. I think high number of MRI and CT units indicate that secondary prevention is being enforced well and this helps early detection of diseases, therefore improving the health of the public. Although U.S recorded the highest total spending on medical care, ironically, its public spending on health is significantly lower than OECD average. I think this paradox is coming from people who do not have or cannot afford insurance. I think ensuring health insurace of everyone would reduce this discrepency.

10 Great public health achievements!

Because of the unprecedented, gigantic snow storm, I did not have intro to public health class this week; professor Kahan gave us an aritcle via email so that we could discuss it on our blog! In the article, the author states that since 1900, the average life span of Americans have lenghtened by more than 30 years, which can be attributed to the great efforts of public health professions. MMWR pointed out ten great public health achievements made in between 1900 and 1999: vaccination, motor vehicle safty, safe workplaces, control of infectious diseases, decline in deaths from coronary heart disease and stroke, safer and healthier foods, healtheir mothers and babies, family planning, fluoridation of water, and recognition of tabocco. I surely have encountered these from our textbook (i believe it was chaper 30) and definitely from ourlives. Routine use of vaccination definitely contributed to control of infectious diseases. For example, vaccination enabled eradication of smallpox. Thesedays, when you first enroll school, you are always required to show them your immunization record. I cant even imagine those days when you didnt have to be vaccinated or vaccines were out of reach. It's so frightening! Engineers build not only vehicles, but also highways safer. Workers are now at safer enviorments; this reduced fatal occupation injuries by 40 percent. Clean water and improved sanitation enabled reduction in cholera and typhoid. Also, according to the aritcle, discovery of anticrobial therapy enabled control of infectious diseases that had been major causes of death such as STDs and tuberculosis. Early detection and better treatment enabled decline in deaths from heart disease and stroke. Safer foods decreased microbial infections but increased in nutritional content. Thanks to better hygiene, nutrition, health care, and availability of antibiotics, infant mortaility decreased by 90% and maternal mortality decreased by 99%!!!!! (I totally wow-ed after reading this part; 99% is surely amazing.)Family planning changed women's social and economic role; at the same time, it helped prevention of STDs. Floridation of drinking water reduced tooth decay in children and tooth loss in adults. Recognition of tobacco use as a health hazard stopped people from smoking. I particularly resonate with safer and healthier foods; I read "Jungle" couple years ago and got shocked. Although, we often read articles about e.coli outbreaks that seemed to be caused by burger patties, compared to what happned before , it definitly improved a lot and i would like to give credits to the efforts of American public health the most. I also resonate alot with "safer motor vehicle" part because we are always told to "fasten seat belts" and not to "drunk drive". Funny thing is that we rarely noticed that it is a public health related issue. I did not know that until i did the reading! However, i actually do not really resonate or agree with fluoridation of water part not because i think it helped prevent toothloss and tooth decay, but because im very used to this kind of water that i dont realize how the drinking water is protecting me from tooth decay and toothloss. The last criterion (a thing that i believe it shouldve been on the list) was really hard to think of. I think it is because I am so used to all these things around me, and therefore ive never really appreciated it as a great public health achievement. But i think availiability of medicine and medical care should have been on the list because there are always people who try to give medical help to the poor and medical care itself is in reach; this is very different from the past.

Course blog: assignment #1

Hi, my name is Rosa Kim. I am a freshman at Johns Hopkins University. I am from Belmont, Massachusetts which is a little town in Boston suburb. I am a big baseball fan(Red Sox, obviously). I first came here with neuroscience major, but i am now considering switching out of neuroscience. I took neuroscience course back in high school, and I thought it was pretty interesting but I wanted to learn more applicable and more community involved. Meanwhile, i took this freshman seminar course called "From Tropical Disease to Global Health" last semester and was very inspired by how public health is so much involved with politics and the public. I still remember when I read the book "Hot Zone" by Richard Preston for required class reading; in the book, CDC and USAMRID didn't publicize the out break of marburg virus at this research lab in Atlanta, fearing the public's panic. It was so much more complicated than simply curing individual sick patients. This is a reason that i decided to take intro to public health this semester; so that i can learn more about public health in detail. From the past 3 lectures, not one from today, we learned what "public health" is, what is its goal, and three core function of "public health." Public health is defined as the science of preventing and controlling disease, injury, and disability, and of prolonged healthy life of the public. In other words, different from medical care which heavily focused on healing individual patients, public health emphasizes impovement of the health of that population and preventing illness. My interest in public health may be epidemiology, so more like the science area, rather than policies and statistics. However, I'll see how it goes as i learn more and more about public health this semester! I watched the movie "Outbreak " in Tropical disease class last semester and thought it would be very intersting to find a source of infectious disease. My initial impression of the first two classes was pretty good. I honestly learned alot from those lectures; I was able to grasp what public health is and how it is different from medical care, which is a reason why i decided to stick to this class =) However, some of the materials were repeating. I liked the fact that students can involve even though it's a lecture class.