Water Solutions in Disasters and for Every Day

Several years ago, a company called Vestergaard Frandsen created a device called a LifeStraw. The device looks exactly like a very large straw and it can theoretically be used to drink water out of nearly any water source and the straw itself, stuffed with different filters and disinfectants, will remove bacteria and parasites. Problems began to arise with the LifeStaw soon after its creation. As of now, the LifeStraw costs about $3.50 a piece to produce and would last for about six months or more. The device has drawn various criticisms from being too slow to actually provide enough water to not changing the root cause of the clean water shortage problem. The biggest debate about this seems to be whether or not that amount of money is feasible for the countries in which such a product would be most necessary. Would that money be better spent on solving a root problem such as education?

More recently, a company named Hydration Technology Innovations has come up with a similar, though possibly more feasible idea, this time directed toward disaster relief. Their device is called the HTI HydroPack and it is referred to in the article as a “Capri Sun pouch for disaster relief.” The idea is that once the pouch, containing powdered nutrients while empty, spends about half a day in a water source will be filled with potable, nutrient-fortified water. The HydroPack seems to have some advantages over the LifeStraw, particularly in disaster or temporary relief situations. First of all, while the pack does take a considerable amount of time to fill, it does not require the direct activity of a person such as the LifeStraws do. Secondly, the addition of nutrients into the pack would be an excellent way to improve nutritional health in a way that requires no additional effort from the users beyond getting the water. The pack seems easier to distribute in a hurry which, as the article mentions, is probably better than the current method of distributing bottled water since the weight and volume of the actual water is not a factor in transportation. A big question right now seems to be the production costs of the pack.

Although both of these devices seem more like a Band-Aid than a true solution to the world’s aggravated water problems, they seem to be a step toward more efficient and effective disaster relief and temporary water-shortage relief. I’ll be interested to see what becomes of these two products and if either of them makes its way into mainstream use.

A Price Tag on Health

Recent research has discovered a strong connection between failing to take a prescription and the inability to pay for that prescription. According to an article I read in The Chicago Tribune, a large portion of people—maybe as many as twenty percent—fail to take their medication because they are not able to afford the prescription. The study showed that the people at risk of non-adherence were people who had money issues, and people who came from difficult, disorganized lives.

The problem with this non-adherence is that many of the health issues that are left untreated can eventually lead to many more health issues, sometimes more severe than the initial. These more sever issues tend to bring about more prescriptions and more medical costs. It is an endless cycle due to the inability to treat the initial illness. Unfortunately, Doctors rarely ask patients whether they can afford their medication or not. The patients on the other hand, do not offer up this information because they fear embarrassment in their inability to pay. Instead, the prescriptions are written under the assumption that the patient will take them. So how do we fix this problem? How do we devise a system to make sure patients can afford and are actually taking their medicine once they leave the office?

I think this article presents a good barrier to effective change in public health. That is, the inability to control a person’s behavior. Instead, what we must do is make sure we provide necessary means for them to achieve maximum help. In this case, that would require making sure the prescriptions are affordable, or creating payment plans to assist in payments of the drugs.

I think this article also brings up an important point in drug delivery in general. With all of the patents on prescription drugs, it is not easy to administer drugs to those that need them. It is a constant battle to afford drugs necessary for the betterment of a group of people or even for the individual. So what can we do to make access to improved health possible for all? How can we work around these patents and not let cost of prescription get in the way of treatment and prevention of future health problems?

Philadelphia School Battles Students Bad Eating Habits

This New York Times article discusses a school in Philadelphia that is attempting to change the eating habits of their students. Philadelphia has one of the biggest problems with kids being overweight in the nation. The school is attempting to curve these kids' eating habits during school, but they are also pleading to the community to help. Many kids buy sweets at nearby shops in addition to eating many unhealthy choices at school. This is a very difficult public health issue because it requires change at many levels. The kids have to make better choices in their eating, but they need proper education about how to make the right nutritional companies. It also takes companies willing to adjust their products which is a problem because the sweeter products taste better to the kids. The issue of childhood obesity is a problem that continues to grow in this country, and it will take a large effort to bring an end to the problem.

The issue of childhood obesity is difficult to control because the change does not have to happen in just one person or group of people. Much of the blame falls on the parents for not providing kids with healthy food and educating them about what to eat. Schools have let kids down by providing candy and soda very easily for so many years. Companies make unhealthy foods and snacks that target kids as well. I think the school in Philadelphia is taking positive steps towards helping their students become healthier. Implementing education about healthy eating into gym class at a young age is important because kids need to learn the right amounts of food for their body. I'm reminded of the lunchroom we discussed during the behavior change topic in class about nudging people to make decisions by putting fruit at eye level for example. Public health needs to take advantage of this more to try and curve children's behavior because if they can promote healthy eating at school, this will eventually carry over to their home as well.

Childhood obesity is affecting the overall health of our population. More people are becoming diagnosed with diabetes and heart disease at a younger age. A healthy lifestyle that starts as a child can translate into better health as an adult. Childhood obesity is probably on of the major reasons this generation has a lower life expectancy than their parents. It is important for schools to also teach eating everything in moderate amounts. There is nothing wrong with having a soda or candy bar every once in a while, but making these very accessible to kids everyday will not help the problem. Kids are going to buy what they like to eat best, and that usually does not include fruit. Making candy and soda more expensive and fruit a little cheaper may be a way to change the behavior of the kids in the school. After reading this article, I am wondering what is the best way to teach kids to eat healthy without taking away all their options for meals at school? Also, what role can public health/government play in changing the options that are offered?

A Public Health Nightmare: The Nuclear Disaster in Japan

Helen Caldicott, a strong nuclear power opponent, the head of the Helen Caldicott Foundation for a Nuclear-Free Planet and a leading pediatrician on faculty at Harvard Medical School, was interviewed by CNN about the health risks of the nuclear situation in Japan. She describes that there is no way to estimate risk with a nuclear disaster of this type. Public Health officials will have a very hard time determining who is being affected by this radiation. While studying risk in class, we talked about the ratio of those infected over all of those at risk. If no denominator can be determined, the best plan of action is extremely unclear. While public health officials are used to fairly inaccurate data, the difficulties of measuring radiation and the lack of short term effects makes this case especially difficult. Once a person is exposed to radiation in food, water, or air, there are very few resources available to help them. It is nearly impossible to provide enough clean water to support a large population whose drinking water has been poisoned and nothing can be done to prevent people from breathing in toxic air particles. These barriers severely limit primary and secondary levels of care in public health. The only option left is treatment after the damage has already been done. It is impossible to stop this disaster from happening, and its effects cannot really be slowed. To make matters more complicated, the effects of radiation are extremely long lasting. The rate of disease in this affected area will be extremely high for a long time to come.

Are there any solutions for these extremely important public health questions? Even if the chances of these disasters are extremely low, are the severe health risks high enough to question the shut down of all nuclear power plants? How prepared is the United States to deal with a problem like this? If we have no preventative plan in place, how can any other public health plans be made?

Wealth and Health: The Case of Melanoma

The Article

Melanoma is the most dangerous type of skin cancer. With the ability to spread rapidly, it the leading cause of death from skin disease. Living in sunny climates or at high altitudes, long-term exposure to high levels of strong sunlight, and the use of tanning devices are all attributed to the cause of melanoma.

In recent studies of women developing melanoma, or skin cancer, results have shown that the number of young white women diagnosed with melanoma has more than doubled in the past three decades.

A further analysis provides even more shocking results. The classification of women in which this increase has been seen is in women who are wealthier and more educated. Why? Experts believe it is because they are spending more leisurely time outdoors and more time tanning.

"Melanoma rates increased significantly during the study periods only among higher-income women, the researchers found. Women from the highest-income areas were nearly six times as likely to be given a diagnosis of malignant melanoma than those in the poorest areas."

Despite the ability of more educated and higher income women to access healthcare and treatment for cancer, invasive cancers are diseases that are not fully preventable by medicine.

Christina Clarke, researcher, summarized the findings: "We think this has to do with cultural preferences in higher-income groups for tanning, having the time to tan and the means to pay for tanning beds, and sun exposure on vacations in the middle of winter."

So this yet again brings up the question, should tanning devices be banned by the government in an effort to decrease the number of skin cancer cases? If the eradication of tanning devices or the taxation on tanning devices was placed into effect, would this be considered an infringement upon human rights, even though it could possibly save thousands of lives?

Brain Freeze: How the Deluge of Information Paralyzes Our Ability to Make Good Decisions

In this article by Sharon Begley, researchers explore how information-overload plays a role in our decision making.

They conducted various scenarios such as selection of apartments, combinatorial auctions, etc. and then giving the participants either some or no information and having them choose at random or on a gut selection or giving them a wealth of data and information regarding their choices. In almost all cases they found that as the amount of information increased, people's selections inevitably became worse (they picked pricier apartments with worse features or lost money on the combinatorial auctions). In essence, they suffered from "information fatigue".

Is this sounding familiar yet? Remember last Thursday? Remember all of the information we had on Japan, and how by the time we were introduced to the second round of events we had all basically burnt out? Public health is very much an information oriented field. And as we saw last class, it takes a lot of information to coordinate any sort of effective response to a crisis.

The article details how often an overload of information can be completely debilitating, resulting in no decision at all. In the public health field if this happened, individuals would suffer greatly as a quick response is often necessary. They also detailed how information overload results in diminished returns. We have all the information, so that by the time we do make a decision, we regret it because we already know so much that we can imagine how the other options may have played out more positively. Text messaging is now a daily part of our lives--think about all the daily conversations you have with someone over texting. Which do you remember? The most recent bit of data trumps what may have occurred only a few minutes beforehand. Just because it's recent, does nothing to ensure that it's accurate either. In the Japan exercise, an organization reported that there was no radiation contamination risk, and at that time that was the most recent information. By the next day, abnormal radiation levels had been detected in vegetables, later milk, later other produce, and now water.

More importantly, data overload causes us to neglect one of our most important decision making tools--our unconscious, our gut, that little voice inside your head. In public health where time is of the essence and we must often make split-second decisions, the unconscious is an important tool, but if it is diminished we often make bad decisions. The article says, "a constant focus on the new makes it harder for information to percolate just below conscious awareness, where it can combine in ways that spark smart decisions". This is not saying that your gut is the best option for all decision making, but rather that when it is necessary to use it, it's important to have that tool. Creativity too can become suppressed by overwhelming the mind with information.

Clearly all of these concerns are very relevant to public health. In the moment thinking, creative solutions, multiple options, a need for action all pertain to the ways in which we come up with effective action plans in public health. With the information from this article in hand, perhaps next time we are presented with a complex array of events to put in order we will be better prepared to handle them.

Dire Situation in Misrata Hospital

I don't know about you, but if I had just had an arm or a leg amputated, the last thing that I would be able to muster the strength to do is be alone. In Libya currently, protests have been raging for a long time over political strife, with loyalists to Libyan leader Moammar Gahdafi.

The article that I found today focuses on a centralized hospital located is Misrata. This hospital should be regarded as a safe haven by the people that are being harmed in this conflict- however, the scene has turned from an oasis into a gruesome play of hallway operations and weary physicians trying to keep up.

The Misrata hospital only has 60 beds, and at one point for an extended period of time was operating on only generator power with no electricity. This issues however have been even more numerous than that. Doctors have been operating in the hallways of the hospital because there simply are not enough beds to keep up with the maladies, for example 109 people in Misrata have been slain in the past week. Doctors have also been asked to operate without anesthesia, which is giving both patients and physicians a great test of their patience and ability to handle the pain.

Bombs fell very near the hospital this week as well, leaving many wondering how much longer the hospital can operate while it is constantly being targeted by snipers. The snipers were even shooting at ambulances arriving at the Misrata hospital.

This combines both the situation of disaster as we discussed this week in class as well as its merging with the physical medical facility of the hospital. The myriad of public health concerns that this situation brings forth is, in many ways, to large for me to fathom. What about all of the bacteria that can be entering patients bodies as they are making their way through the chaos outside the hospital as well as inside? And how can the doctors fairly be asked to risk their lives 24 hours a day as snipers watch the hospital and bombs nearly destroy them? Is it fair to ask them not to try and protect themselves and seek shelter? And how long can a situation as scattered as this honestly continue before there is no longer hope?

Rear-Facing Car Seats Show Policy and Global Link

Issues of public health rarely have a stationary status, instead shifting to reflect both cultural values and new information. This is illustrated by new statistics on the number of injuries and fatalities in children who have been in a car crash. The information, presented in the New York Times, indicates that the celebrated switch at one year from having a child go from a rear-facing car seat to a front-facing car seat may be too soon.
In fact, for children younger than two, being rear facing increases the likelihood of surviving a car crash by 75%, according to a study done at the University of Virginia. This huge difference in the survival of young children based on having a rear-facing seat suggests that it is an important safety feature in children this old, not just under one.
After receiving the information that this was the case, additional research was conducted to find the physiological basis for this problem. Based on the developmental pattern of the human spinal cord, the impact of a car crash will be much greater until the child reaches around two years of age.
However, despite this information, a huge challenge is convincing parents that this is a big enough issue to warrant a change in what has been, for many families, a traditional pattern of aging and car-safety. This is where the connection to policy comes into play. In addition to ad campaigns informing parents of the new changes, policy makers are in the process of mandating that manufacturers of car seats only suggest that children over two be placed in front-facing seats.
This is an issue not only facing the United States, but many others as well. One of the countries at the forefront of developing solutions is Sweden, where any child under the age of 4 must be in a rear-facing seat, and which also has the lowest child fatality rate in car crashes of any country. Based on using other countries as examples and spreading safe policies, the United States can help citizens change their own behavior.

the Nuclear Crisis in Japan

As if the earthquake and tsunami weren't enough to handle, another national crisis has struck the peaceful country of Japan. A popular story on the news, the nuclear power plant crisis is continuing to have devastating impacts on the Japanese community. Although most of the damaged reactors have been swiftly repared, scientists are now reporting contamination within the local food supply. Large amounts of radioactive substances were recently detected in local produce and livestock, causing the country to bar all shipments of dairy products and vegetables, many of which were being used to provide aid to the disaster areas.
With this nuclear power plant disaster comes alot of public criticism. Now, many Americans are questioning the safety of nuclear energy. Public officials are constantly assuring the people that nuclear energy is safe and efficient. The US Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission states that after September 11, nuclear plants were ordered to perfect their equipment, and mandatory inspections were held often. This is an example of preventative public health at work. Japan illustrates what could have happened had our government loosely regulated such potentially dangerous sources of energy. As for Japan, it is crucial that the Japanese government take necessary steps to ensure that such a disaster never occurs again.

link: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/21/us/21nuke.html?ref=health
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/21/world/asia/21japan.html?ref=health

What Happens in Libya when the Shooting Stops?

This article explores the ongoing situation in Libya between Gadhafi and the opposition forces. Recently, the UN approved a no-fly zone in Libya so that Gadhafi would stop murdering and killing his own people. The situation in Libya is very tense right now, but the needs of the people must also be met during this time. The opposition forces want to finally remove Gadhafi from power. From a public health perspective, how is health care and services adequately distributed in a country where the government is killing its own people and a civil war is a possibility. Some people in the US want to remove Gadhafi from government, but that means even more deaths.

It is very difficult for public health to deliver the necessary service to the Libyan people because of the tensions between the government and its own people. The injured members of those people fighting against Gadhafi probably have limited access to resources right now because they have no government backing and no services that are there to serve them when they are injured in a battle. With the military shooting many Libyan protesters, how is healthcare being distributed to these people in need.

I believe that military action by other countries is a necessary step to keep the government from killing its own people, but it is also necessary to provide these people with resources like food, water, and health services. Many resources of the UN countries should contribute efforts to these areas as well. This is also a way to support the opposition to Gadhafi's regime without direct military action. I'm sure there is a need for food and medicine within these opposition camps because the government is not providing anything for them like it would normally for its military. Members of the UN should come together to find a way to help these people.

It would take many public health officials to see where the need is greatest and how to serve these people that are suffering. It is not an easy solution because the government would obviously resist providing basic necessities for these people. If we are going to spend time and money to save lives by enforcing a no fly zone, I think it is also reasonable that providing food and medicine would also save lives in this country. We tend to look at the big picture when sometimes the simplest things can make the biggest impact. There are many questions that would have to be answered for such an effort to take place such as how would supplies such as food and medicine be taken to these people if the government resists such action by foreign countries?

Radiation from Japan Reaches the Shores of California

This article was published by CNN on March 19th, and deals with the much feared topic of the radiation tragedy that occurred in Japan only a week ago. The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization carried out a test that showed that there are traces of radioactive materials that are present now in California from the disaster in Japan. However, before widespread panic is ensued, it should be noted that the levels are reported as much below anything that would be harmful to human health.

The radiation found is determined to be from Japan's plant, called Fukushima, because the timing as well as the isotopes found of radiation match the kind that the plant emitted.

The way that public health is being exemplified in this situation is the way that international organizations are working together to try and defend the health of the whole human race. the International Atomic Energy Agency and the World Health Organization are beginning to work more closely with the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization, and this situation that began in Japan is what brought on this cohesive teamwork.

The reason that this is important it because now if we can work internationally as both retrospective and prospective defendants of public health, then we can try and minimize the effects of tragedies like the Fukushima plant explosion the best that we are able.

Another thing that this article brings to light is the way that the media reaches the general public on situations such as this. Word has gotten out that by taking potassium iodide, citizens here in America will be protected from the radiation. The first point to consider is that if the media portrayed the situation completely accurately, then citizens in America should have the understanding that the radiation is not present at a harmful level. However, people can reasonably see a cause for alarm. So, it is very important to stress the harmful effects that taking potassium iodide has on the body and hopefully halt the consumption of these harmful drugs.

One way that could possibly be very effective to deal with this is to take the potassium iodide off any over the counter shelves until the excitement from the radiation scare has passed. However, this would also lend itself to scrutiny because people may actually need potassium iodide for certain medical conditions, and I am in no position to judge what the pros and cons of this action would be anyways. However, I just think that all of the public health awareness that has stemmed from this tragic event is very good to analyze and keep in mind when moving forward.

Response of W.H.O. to Swine Flu Is Criticized

The NY Times ran an article on an independent study's findings regarding the W.H.O's response to the swine flu pandemic. The study was started in response to allegations the W.H.O used the swine flu pandemic to allow vaccine companies to profit largely. These allegations, that the W.H.O exaggerated the severity of the disease, had no supporting evidence as a result of this study. But more alarmingly, the study suggests that the W.H.O is unprepared to handle future pandemics, foreshadowing the deaths of millions of people if a pandemic is more lethal and severe.

The report cited a few public health techniques that actually inhibit a future response to a global pandemic. The article specifically criticizes the agency's "needlessly complex" definition of pandemic. The importance in defining a disease was highlighted during an in-class exercise. Improperly defining a disease based on its spread, rather than severity, can lead to unwarranted widespread panic in response to the disease. This fear makes the disease seem much worse than it really is. The report also references the agency's inefficiency at distributing vaccines to those who needed it. A reported 78 million doses of vaccine were wasted and did not reach its intended target populations. This is a fairly large waste in resources and shouldn't be allowed to happen.

Ultimately, the W.H.O needs to change its tactics in response to disease-spread. The conflict of interests of agency workers who also pursue vaccine research shouldn't be allowed to happen and this allows vaccine companies to exploit hapless, panic-stricken populations. This tactic is misleading for the general population and doesn't allow healthcare professionals to get an accurate measure for the severity of a disease. Given that a severity of a disease affects the definition and subsequent diagnosis and treatment, this is aspect of the W.H.O's response should be accurate. In addition, vaccine companies, and the W.H.O, need to improve both the development and delivery of drugs/vaccines. The article notes that vaccine companies use a time-consuming and out-of-date method for developing vaccines. As a result, too little vaccine would be produced during the onset of a severe pandemic, and the disease would subsequently spread quickly throughout the world. On top of this, the vaccine needs to actually get to the people in need. This means ensuring that a portion of vaccines are reserved for poorer countries whose populace is more likely to contract the disease. But also, agencies and government's need to communicate much better in order to efficiently distribute vaccines and drugs to the people. In doing this, we can much better manage the spread of future pandemics but also prevent the waste of resources.

Defining an Illness is Fodder for Debate

What is disease? One of the largest challenges of epidemiology is generating a definition of a illness that is both balanced between narrow and broad-based specifications, and is accurate to the population considered within the definition. Epidemiologists, researchers, policy makers, and teaching professionals across the globe are struggling in their ability to create disease definitions that correspond with the multitude of symptoms potentially placing patients within that illness category. This day-to-day challenge restricts public health officials' proficiency in creating successful programs, treatments, and prevention strategies for the community. "No case definition is perfect; every disease has outliers. But whether a definition is broadly or narrowly drawn can profoundly affect the statistics vital for public health planning," as stated by author David Tuller, of the New York Times.

When similarly reoccurring disease symptoms are observed in enough people within a specific time period, a case definition is needed so that classifications of presence and severity of the disease can be constructed. These classifications allow public health professionals to assess the event. If a disease definition is too broad or too narrow, then this act becomes increasingly more strenuous. "You need to know whether the numbers are going up or down, or whether treatment and prevention work. And if you have a bad case definition, then it's very difficult to figure out what's going on," says Professor of Epidemiology Andrew Moss of the University of California - San Francisco.

These challenges were illustrated in recent studies of workers suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome. It was found that a range of 2.5%, all the way to 11%, of the workers were diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome. This broad range of potential sufferers is attributed to the type of test performed on each individual, whether it be a physical exam, nerve tests, or simply reported symptoms. In another study of acute gastroenteritis, it was found that the number of diagnoses doubled when the case definition of the illness was loosened to encompass more people.

"If researchers filter their perceptions through different lenses — that is, case definitions that generate study populations varying in size and characteristics — it is hard to know whether they are studying the same phenomenon, overlapping ones or completely unrelated ailments. Determining whether findings from one study can be extrapolated to other patients becomes difficult at best" (Tuller).

Communication between epidemiologists is essential to understanding a disease. Defining the characteristics of it and using the same criteria for diagnosing it allows epidemiologists to see the illness through the same lens, and thus collaborate to treat and prevent it within the population.

K2 and Athletics

Drug abuse has become a growing issue in society as drug popularity rises thanks in part to their hallucinogenic, elevating, and muscle enhancing effects. As regulatory agencies look to restrict usage, users continue to find ways to subvert that regulation. One of the newest drugs, K2, looks to do just that in the athletic field, by avoiding detection in the routine drug tests that players are required to submit to.

America seems to have a singular problem with drug abuse in general. You can look at other countries but I would venture to say that they do not have as wide a selection of drug abuse. Many other countries suffer from drug-related issues but they're often tied to a singular drug. In America marijuana, prescription pharmaceuticals, meth, cocaine, heroin, alcohol, steroids, stimulants, depressants, etc. all share widespread use and abuse--some more than others.

With the renewed attention shown to marijuana legislation in the past few years by politicians and lobbyists, the issue is even more on the forefront. While some would argue that its use is as widespread as alcohol and its affects much less severe, there is still relatively little research on the drug and how its longterm effects might affect our bodies and the neurology of the mind.

With its growth in popularity, has come a crackdown in the professional realm to exclude it (although recent legislation has taken steps toward decriminalization). K2 looks to exploit this exclusion by serving as a loophole for those looking to get the high of pot without getting caught. K2's active ingredient is similar to marijuana, but are able to go undetected in major drug tests. Like marijuana it is widely accessible thanks to its cheap price and the ease with which it can be obtained. However, its health effects seem to be proving more serious, although as of yet there are no deaths reported that were directly caused by K2 : heart attacks, elevated heart rate, seizures, hypertension, panic attacks, passing out, etc.

The article bore special relevance as it quotes SLU's director of toxicology. He describes how for athletes, there is a special risk associated since many athletes already take steroids to improve athletic performance. Mr. Scalzo says, "If you add these stresses to the heart, someone's probably going to have a heart attack from it.".

As a college student, we are perhaps one of the most targeted groups for illicit drug use be it alcohol consumption under the legal age or illegal drug use. While opinions vary on degrees of correctness regarding legislation, I hope at the very least we will all take notice of the very real dangers associated with drug use.

Article: http://www.thepostgame.com/features/201103/k2-gains-popularity-among-athletes-similar-high-pot-no-positive-drug-test

When The Glass is One-Thousandth Full

If I told you that 97 percent of SLU students majoring in electrical engineering (E.E.) get less than 6 hours of sleep per night, what questions would you ask me?

Maybe you would ask, “How do the sleeping habits of electrical engineering majors compare to those of other students? Or, “What behaviors do 97% of E.E. students share that might lead to their collectively poor sleep hygiene?”

Answering these questions would teach you what does not work for these students. You could show a connection, not a causal relationship mind you, between sleeping less and following the typical electrical engineering student’s study, work, and sleep schedule.
How much would this information help? Might we be able to look at the number and the information it provides from a more productive angle?

This article suggests that we could.

Why not see what the 3% of students who get more than 6 hours of sleep per night can teach us? Could we find some lifestyle factor that those three percent who are sleeping more than the majority of their classmates share? If so, we would have one or two ideas for what does work instead of a cluster of information about what fails.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. That statement is trite. We already know public health is all about prevention.

What about this idea: A teaspoon of “Yes” is worth a gallon of “No”?

Discovering what already works and figuring out why it is effective is much better than compiling a list of beautiful theories that crumbled under the contextual forces that exist outside of theoretical vacuum. I’m not saying failed experiments are useless. Failure is an excellent teacher. However, public health experts often choose to capitalize on already present successes instead of trudging through the default try-and-fail swamp (see study). This approach looks at Positive Deviants. Positive Deviants are individuals who "differ in a healthy direction from the normative (and less healthy) outcome of their neighbors in the same milieu" (Walker, 2007).

Although it was not until the early 1990s that public health experts at Tufts University formalized this approach (history of Positive Deviance), it is not a new idea. Think back to the development of the small pox vaccine. Edward Jenner looked at the minority of individuals who did not contract small pox—the milk maids—in a community full of individuals who did. He asked a question: What do these women have that everyone else in this town lacks? His answer—cow pox—eventually resulted in the eradication of small pox. (Source).

What do you foresee as limitations to the Positive Deviance approach? Can you think of recent or historic public health successes that took advantage of Positive Deviance research?

If this concept interests you, look into these two books:

School Cafeteria Success?

I recently read an article in the New York Times that discussed the issue of school cafeteria lunches. I was pleasantly surprised however, that the article was not a critique of all the problems in school cafeterias. Instead this article was a praise of the success in some New York schools. This article explained that New York school lunches have been rapidly improving over the last six or seven years. These schools encourage foods like whole-grain pasta, salad bars, fresh fruit and low-fat, low-sodium recipes. They have rid of the typical fried foods and artificial ingredients. One school in particular, public school 56, have even gone to such an extreme as to have their own vegetable garden. This school has seen an overwhelming acceptance of the new dining options.

I think what struck me most about this article was that it was a success story. We talked in class about how, in public health, we often hear about when something is going wrong and needs improvement. We rarely hear about the success stories. It was good to finally hear that there are improvements and successes in an area of public health that is so prevalent in the US. That is, childhood obesity. This article gives hope for future improvements in promoting healthy lifestyles for children. It was also nice to just hear something positive for once!

Another thing I found particularly interesting in this article was the acceptance the new program received by the children at the school. One student, who was only in fourth grade, was quoted saying, “It makes me sad when they don’t have salad.” I think this just shows the impact that the programs are having and could have on the education of healthy eating for these children. The fact that she was in fourth grade and admitted that the vegetables were her favorite part amazed me. I also think it was interesting that they mentioned how the education of the children was making its way back to the homes of those children. I think that this is extremely important, in that, it shows how a little education and step in the right direction can make a huge impact.