Hello All! I'm going to discuss the article: Ten Great Public Health Achievements --United States, 1900-1999. This article talks about how public health has significantly improved the life quality in America then goes on to list in detail ten of the greatest achievements contributing to this success. These successes are: Vaccination; Moto-Vehicle Safety; Safer workplaces; Control of infectious diseases; Decline in deaths from coronary heart disease and stroke; Safer and healthier foods; Healthier mothers and babies; Family planning; Fluoridation of drinking water; and Recognition of tobacco use as a health hazard- in that order. I think it’s a good article that effectively lists out the examples of how public health has helped and encouraged improvement tremendously, as compared to medicine and such. It definitely puts into perspective this aspect of public health and illustrates how much public health actually helps, even though people may not notice too much. The two that resonate with me are 'Healthier mothers and babies' and 'Safer workplaces.' There aren't any really personal reasons as to why I like these two. I simply love children and love to see them grow healthy from birth, and I'm just glad that this improvement to help mothers and babies is effective and just the access to health care for women is great. My mother's first child died a few days after birth after being born premature, and I also being born premature, am grateful that much has been done to improve the infant mortality rate. Also, for the safer workplaces- I remember learning about the horrendous stories in my US History classes in high school, and I am so glad that they have changed, because they were just too terrible! Men, women, AND children were being affected by their work conditions and events that could have been prevented like fires, or machine deaths, and such, could have been avoided. Another public health achievement that should have been listed is the Needle Exchange programs run in a few cities. Even though they are fairly recent and are not used widespread to fight the war on drugs and reduce harm on those that use them, they are still very effective! They have significantly contributed against the spread of HIV among drug users to their partners, children, and each other. This program has prevented many diseases among drug users and its treatment requirement has also helped to get some off drugs. Side note: I don't know if the different laws and regulations that fall under health policy count as a public health achievement in general, but the health policy that has been enacted with guidance of public health is a main factor as to why many of these Top 10 achievements came to pass; and they, whoever 'they' may be, should be given their props. *CLAPS*
Until next week,
Thomasina
Thanks for your post.
ReplyDeleteAll health policy work can generally be lumped under public health work if the laws or government rules try to have an impact on public health. Saying all health policies are a public health achievement is not what we were looking for here. We usually want to define a public health problem (such as obesity, flu, HIV, suicide, motor vehicle accidents) and then state how some public health interventions had an impact on them.
Your argument for the impact of needle exchange programs as a public health achievement would be stronger if you could mention the actual impact (such as reducing HepC or HIV rates in some population by some specific percentage) that needle exchange programs have had.