Mental health, public health, global health. New and interesting developments in technology and the arts. Meditation research. And occasionally cute animals.
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
A genetic archaeologist of sorts, Cary Fowler works to save the wild species threatened by crop domestication.
I have been working on a DrPH - doctor of public health, the applied version of a doctorate (parallel to a MD instead of a PhD) - in global health practice. I’m a year and a half into it, but as I have a background in psychology, not public health, it’s going to take me longer to get through all the prerequisites. It hasn’t been working out well. I haven’t been able to find any opportunities to get on-the-ground experience and have come to realize that generally speaking, global health isn’t the best place for my training, which is in theories of behavior change and the like. For the low-income countries, there’s still a need for basic infrastructure, and for the middle-income countries getting hit by both infectious and chronic diseases, they want to hire from their own citizens, not some ex-pat. So I applied for a mental health promotion position doing primary prevention (i.e. keeping healthy people healthy) at the counseling center on campus at my university and I’m much happier. I only took a leave of absence from my classes, though, meaning in two years I’ll be re-enrolled in that DrPH.
I’ve recently realized that my entire motivation to go into global health was due to a mega case of the White Savior complex - I can admit this well-intentioned but arrogant attitude. Altruism is noble, but it won’t keep you from inadvertently doing damage, just the same. The more I meditate on this, the more I lean toward transferring from a doctorate to a second masters instead, and doing whatever it takes to finish the program quickest. I’m in a good job now; I could happily turn this into a career, I think. Plus, it’s with a population I know well (university students) on issues I know well (stress management, mental health stigma reduction, etc).
I just don’t feel good about going any place where I haven’t explicitly been invited, and asked to help - anything less feels like an attempt to save the community or an attempt to do public health *at* them rather than *with* them. How can we say that we are empowering communities if they aren’t the ones starting off the process? Not to say that it’s impossible to do good global health, but I feel like we do it all backwards - we go places with the intention of specific outcomes - even if in a more general sense (reduce under five mortality) and then try to establish relations with the community. It seems like the only way to genuinely do good global health is to get to know the community first, in a deep way. I feel like the anthropologists have it right when they insist that their students live in the community for a full year before they attempt to do anything.
My generation is more enthusiastic about being activists, especially in the social justice / global health arena, than previous generations. There’s an incredible amount of impassioned interest in things like the Peace Corps and other similar programs - altruistic intentions, but ultimately an incredibly demeaning and arrogant attitude. I fully admit to having been one of those people.
So: now what? Not sure yet, but the old phrase “think globally, act locally” is really resonating with me.
This was required reading in one of my classes and entirely changed my view of global health. Any person who wants to travel and “do good” with something like handing out vitamins in a low-income community should read this.
Link opens a pdf.
If we are to move away from the savior mode into an empowerment paradigm when it comes to assistance to Africa and elsewhere in the developing world, what needs to happen?
A Day Without Dignity: the counter-campaign to Tom’s Shoes A Day Without Shoes by Good Intentions Are Not Enough
The first of several posts on the problems of well-intentioned humanitarian aid and global health…this is a long but articulate description of someone who went through what I am currently undergoing - a realization of the pervasiveness of the White Savior complex among those in global health, understanding the harm that causes, and trying to figure out what the next step is.
I’m hoping the following autoethnography on my sort of coming to consciousness about aid, my role, and the enduring and pervasive white savior fairy tale will turn into an introductory chapter to my dissertation, but for now it’s a lot of critical (self-)reflection, facing my former (and sometimes current) self about what feels like the moral imperative to respond to all of the images we see on screen, media parading around poverty and hopelessness, my dollar the key to reverse it all…
The unprecedented flooding in Pakistan in the latter half of 2010 disrupted the lives of 20 million people, but it also affected the country’s arachnid population.
In 2010 the U.N. agreed to a resolution declaring the human right to
For more than 50 years microbiologists have warned against using antibiotics to fatten up farm animals. The practice, they argue, threatens human health by turning farms into breeding grounds of drug-resistant bacteria. Farmers responded that restricting antibiotics in livestock would devastate the industry and significantly raise costs to consumers. We now have empirical data that should resolve this debate. Since 1995 Denmark has enforced progressively tighter rules on the use of antibiotics in the raising of pigs, poultry and other livestock. In the process, it has shown that it is possible to protect human health without hurting farmers.
Global food prices are soaring again, as droughts, freezes and floods have affected various crops in many parts of the world. At the same time, demand is rising with living standards in fast-growing countries.
The price spikes are not as sharp as they were in 2008, but the new volatility reflects more than the sum of recent freakish weather “events,” from severe droughts in China and Russia to floods in Australia to a deep freeze in Mexico.
Economists and scientists have identified longer-term changes — from global warming to China’s economic growth to a lack of productive farmland — as the culprits. Is the world producing enough food — specifically grain? Is this a continuation of the 2008 crisis, or something quite different?
Researchers in New Zealand have found that a type of jumping spider prefers the odor of smelly socks to clean ones. The spider is the only predator known to feed indirectly on vertebrate blood by eating the mosquitoes that have fed on the vertebrates, including humans.
India’s free hot lunches.
Man, they look so much better than the lunches we had when I was growing up…
Food prices globally are rising to dangerous levels. There is talk of a coming crisis, like the ones that produced riots around the world in 2008 and 1974. Many of the ingredients of a disaster are present, but governments can stop the problem before it causes too much damage.
Stop What You’re Doing And Watch The Hell Out Of This of the Day: Hans Rosling’s eminently informative BBC Four documentary The Joy of Stats — from which this chartgasmic clip was taken — has finally been made available for viewing in all regions (previously, only the Brits were privy to this tremendous knowledge trove).
Dataphiles, you’re gonna want to set two hours aside for this: One hour to watch, and another to regain your composure.
[flowingdata.]
(Source: thedailywhat)
This Is Informative, You Should Watch It of the Day: To promote the launch of “Population 7 Billion” — a 7-part series on global population — National Geographic put out this short promo which aims to put the world’s ever-growing population in perspective.
[vvv.]
(Source: thedailywhat)
