Reflection On The Ppph And Mph Course

Reflection On The Ppph And Mph Course My life before the MPH I have been at the University of Liverpool for the past sixteen years, starting as a BSc Microbiology student, then with my PhD on Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD), and finally working as a research associate on several clinical trials in Malawi, Africa and in Liverpool. I am currently in Primary Care and have just undertaken a feasibility intervention study by NHS Health trainers. Working on this study promoted me to reflect on my own work experience and identify any gaps in my knowledge, which resulted in me applying as a part-time student on the MPH course. Because I only had a contract to the summer of 2010, I was only able to register for some of the course, as a PGCert student. As a result, I have not done the complete MPH, but only the five modules outlined below. First Semester Health Society Quantitative Research Methods I Second Semester An intro to Qualitative Research Health Economics Policy Politics in Public Health I choose these particular modules in relation to the gaps in my knowledge, except in the case of QRM I, which I saw as a refresher course. I would describe myself as a quantitative researcher, who had very little qualitative experience. Although on trials in Malawi and Liverpool, members of the team undertook some qualitative research that I managed on a day-to-day basis. Therefore, I had some understanding of the practicalities in undertaking this type of research but not in the theoretical background, methodology and analysis. Therefore, it was very important for me to do the qualitative parts of the course, as within my current role in Primary Care I will be more hands on with qualitative research. As part of the NHS Health trainer feasibility study, the team looked at the health economics and its implications, in collaboration with colleagues at the University of East Anglia; therefore, it was valuable for me to do this module. In addition, as part of this study I looked at the history and development of the NHS Health trainer policy by the government so I did the PPPH module to help me to put this research into context. So what would I say was my Public Health experience? Well to start with, I think I have worked on research topics of public health importance throughout my time at the University of Liverpool but I may not have formally seen it as the case. I can see this when I reflect on my previous experiences, starting with my PhD, where I studied STDs in Nigeria, as part of my time there we undertook some promotion of condoms within the local rural community. Also in Malawi, one project was on reproductive health issues and again as part of a team, we promoted the safe motherhood programme. Moreover, in the last clinical trial in Malawi, the team was testing an efficacy of a Rotavirus vaccine against diarrhoeal disease, which because of that research has become part of the recommended World Health Organisation vaccine schedule for babies. For that reason, although there has clearly been a public health agenda within my work but I did not see it, it was very important for me to undertake this cou rse. In order to supplement my previous knowledge within the theoretical basis of Public Health and learn some new practical ways to help when I am conducting future research. Public Health Policy Module On of my reason for undertaking, this module was to understand how people create public health policy, the impact of politics has in that, and finally how the implementation of the policy comes into being for ordinary people. As a result, I came into the module with the aims of understanding the workings of the process of policy formation. Overall, I have found the topics in the module very interesting and motivating. As stated earlier, as part of my job I looked at the history and development of the NHS Health trainer policy with their role in helping people to have a healthy life-style. But when I looked at the document trial for this policy I was shocked to see that the role of NHS Health Trainer just seemed to appear in the 2004 white paper Choosing Health: Making healthy choices easier (1), without any supporting research evidence, or even case studies showing how this worked in a UK setting in that white paper. Nevertheless, it was still enshrined into government policy, which has resulted in people, all over the country, employed to be NHS Health trainers. Therefore, I hoped that the PPPH module would give me some insight into how this happened. Consequently, in that context I found the readings and lectures for week two, on Public Health Policy Theoretical background to Policy Formulation and Development in the UK context very enlightening. In the lecture on What is policy, it was interesting that hear that a definition of health policy described as anything the government does, making decisions and implementing actions that allocates a value and how they translate their political vision to deliver outcomes desired changes in the real world. Also outlined were the various different models, which brought home to me the complexity in the development of policy, and the importance that policy should be evidence based. When I related this lecture back to my own experience with NHS Health trainer policy, I could see that how it derived its origin, from the political idea of choice in influencing public behaviour to improve health and wellbeing. This idea was supported by one of the pre-lecture readings, where Mulgan (2010) stated that we know people care about their health and the link of illness with their everyday choices, but they find it hard to adopt healthier behaviours, therefore how does the government help people to make to help people make the right choices for them (2). Therefore, it seems that the NHS Health trainer policy appears to be political intervention, designed to mop up gaps and strengthen other areas driven by the idea of having a healthy choice. In addition, I saw how the government has not adopted the nudge approach to this policy, which soft and non-intrusive and preserves an individual freedom of choice in that you do not remove the unhealthy choice altogether. But, used the stewardship model, which sees government as having an active, positive role, in that it promotes health by providing information and advice, with NHS Health trainer programme to help people overcome unhealthy behaviours (3). I can see the NHS Health Trainers policy ticking all the right boxes, such as community involvement, not top down, and client focused but the evidence base for this policy is weak, with the NHS Health Trainers Initiative website devoted to guidance notes and health trainer only. Up till now, recent publications on the main outcomes of the national and local reports for NHS Health Trainers Initiative of Health trainers have focussed on recruitment and training of Health trainers and analysis of service delivery but not client outcomes (4;5). Crucially, no studies have examined the effectiveness of Health Trainers at promoting heart-healthy lifestyles, with our work being only a feasibility study, which we have not yet published. This seemed to me to be back to front way of doing it. However, in reflection the lectures, in week 3, on Influencing Public Health Policy were interesting as, I am looking at to how my own work on Health trainers could have an impact on the current policy. Th ese lectures brought home again, how complex the world of Policy and Politics is within Public Health. I can draw on the experiences of the speakers, in week 3, in their roles as advocates for policy change from inside and outside the system. It is clear that policy change is not linear but follows a circular pattern; within this circle therefore, as a researcher, I can contribute by increasing the knowledge base for this policy. I found researching for the debate, I was part of the team looking at the argument for the motion on the Marmot Report, gave me a greater insight into the difficulties of addressing the health problems in our society. One of the key points our team made, was that the way our current public health policy looks at tackling the symptoms rather than the root causes of health inequalities. Moreover, from my reading around in preparation for this work, the question arose as to how we do not address the real issues, which at the root of it is the political ideology of Neo-liberalism. Navarro (2007) pointed out that real problem is not absolute resources but the degree one has control over ones own life in every society (6). In this article, Navarro gave an example of this quoted below. An unskilled, unemployed, young black person living in the ghetto area of Baltimore has more resources (he or she is likely to have a car, a mobile phone, a TV, and more square feet per household and more kitchen equipment) than a middle-class professional in Ghana, Africa. If the whole world were just a single society, the Baltimore youth would be middle class and the Ghana professional would be poor. And yet, the first has a much shorter life expectancy (45 years) than the second (62 years). How can that be, when the first has more resources than the second? (6) This created a powerful image, which brought home that message to me about how the inequalities affect our society. There has been a focus on the phenomenon of lifestyle drift, whereby governments start with a commitment to dealing with the wider social determinants of health but end up instigating narrow lifestyle interventions on individual behaviours, even where action at a governmental level may offer the greater chance of success, this can be seen in the NHS Health trainer policy. Even though I had to argue for the impossibility in implementing the recommendations of Marmot, I strongly believe that when making changes we need to be part of a collective membership where we take decisions not just in the interest of an individual but also for the everyone as a whole. On the other hand, on a note of pessimism I was shocked as to how successive governments failure to act on the health inequalities reports prior to Marmot, such as the Black Report (1980), Acheson Report (1998) and Wanless Report (2004). Consequently, we need to understand the political determinants of health and act upon them, even if it seems risky and painful to implement the changes needed. Has my perspective changed? As I have only done some modules of the MPH, I will reflect on the impact of these. However as it now seems I will be, continuing next year with the remaining modules, I expect these views to change in the coming year as do the other modules. The question asks what affect this course has had my own understanding of and my future approach to public health. Well, as explained earlier, before undertaking this course I could see how my work has had elements of dealing with public health issues at the coalface, as it were in Africa and latterly in the UK, but I seemed unaware of them at the time. I think that is clearly one of the important changes to how I view public health from now on. Over the course of all the modules, I have seen very much the interconnectivity of all the disciplines in both developing the knowledge base for and creating public health policy itself. As I have trained as a quantitative scientist, very much grounded in the positivist view of society, I found the two qualitative modules very enlightening. One of the results from my study on the NHS Health trainer was how little people engaged with the programme even though we recruited people into the study because of they had risk factors for cardiovascular disease, such as obesity. A group of people who at the outset we thought would be an ideal group for the intervention. However, when looking at the pattern of behaviour in the quantitative data at each stage of the study, a higher than normal proportion of this group did not take up our offer and engage with our Health trainers. Fortunately, in parallel to this research the team conducted qualitative interviews with some of the participants. Therefore, we were able to get some information on why we saw this affect, with the view coming out that some people were hoping that the LHTs would find a nutritional magic bullet but when faced with the reality that the programme only involved motivational support they disengaged. Therefore, as a specific example of a change in my practice in the future, I see the need to incorporate a mixed paradigm approach, quantitative and qualitative, to get the whole research picture. Therefore, in undertaking the two qualitative modules I know feel I have a good understanding of the theory and practice to start adopting this as an effective approach to my research.

Holmes v South Carolina Essay

Facts: Holmes was charged with first degree murder, first degree burglary and robbery in connection with an incident involving an 86 year old woman, Mary Stewart. Holmes was also charged for the rape and murder of Stewart. At the trial court, Holmes was convicted by the South Carolina Supreme Court. The United States Supreme Court denied certiorari. The petitioner had appealed and the court granted a new trail. During the new trial the prosecution introduced new forensic evidence including palm prints and blood that was found at the scene of the crime. At the new trial, the petitioner also sought to introduce proof of another man named Jimmy McCaw White. The court excluded the third party evidence of guilt because the grounds of the evidence were not admissible. The evidenced only implicated that the third party and did not exclude the defendant. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari Issue: Is evidence of a third party’s guilt admissible if it only implicates the third party and does not exculpate the defendant? Rule and Rationale: Yes. Under the Constitution of the United States, a defendant in a criminal case has to be given the opportunity to present a complete defense. The defendant also has the right and opportunity to present evidence of innocence, and only the evidence of guilt of a third party. Excluding evidence and only hearing the prosecutions evidence in the case did not give the court the right to make a conclusion based on the evidence at hand. The evidence against the prosecution supported that the defendant was guilty but did not automatically exclude the evidence of the third party as weak. Holmes was entitled to introduce the evidence of Whites guilt. The exclusion of that evidence violated Holmes’s right to have the opportunity to present a complete defense. Standard Relied On: State v. Gay, 541 S.E.2d 541, 545 (S.C. 2001). The case gave clear meaning by bringing to light that the strength of one party’s evidence has no logical conclusion that can be reached regarding the strength of the contrary evidence from the other side to cast doubt. The rule from Gay was arbitrary and violated a criminal defendant’s right to have a meaningful opportunity to present a complete defense Case Significance: The case clarified the Constitutional validity of rules of admission for third party guilt evidence. Just because the evidence against the prosecution supported the defendant’s guilt, this did not automatically exclude the third party’s evidence. Additionally, no logical conclusions can be made based on contrary evidence that cast doubt on the defendant.

De-bunking Social Media and the Claim to Health - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 6 Words: 1765 Downloads: 2 Date added: 2019/04/10 Category Society Essay Level High school Tags: Social Media Essay Did you like this example? Ten years ago, when we wanted to learn about a specific subject you would have to open a newspaper, an encyclopedia, or maybe even do a specific google search. In todays culture, social media keeps us up to date on our friends daily lives, current news, and social happenings. The latest obsession blowing up social media is food! Every day our accounts are filled with a eat this, not that mentality. We see a new food causing cancer, or even better the newest superfood that will help you avoid cancer. How do we know what is true? Just like a filter on a picture, the news we read about our food is tweaked and modified. Research is being masked and modified to fit scenarios to the benefit of the viewer. These false stories get shared across different social media platforms, with no valid checks on the content. We end up blindly following the crowd. People post new diets which offer quick weight loss, but at what cost to the body? What even is a superfood? These are questions we should be asking before we share the link. American pop culture is portrayed through food by fad diets, superfoods, and marketing, through the lens of social media. I contend that most news of health and wellness, on social media, is misleading. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "De-bunking Social Media and the Claim to Health" essay for you Create order According to social media new foods are coming up every day as a superfood. They tend to start like this, deep in the rainforest a new food was found, and it is the cure to all of lifes problems. Soon enough people are shelling out the big bucks for this magical cure. Only to find out, it tastes awful, and it does not work. Sometimes the best superfoods can be found at the local grocery store, but how profitable would that be? Another great question to ask is who is posting the content. Big corporations pay large sums of money for advertising, and social media has become one of their largest platforms. If it gets the consumer to want the product, they do what the consumer wants. Nevertheless, there is a fair amount of information that is hidden in advertising. Many trigger words like, gluten-free and fat-free, are posted to capture the attention of a consumer. Even though they might not even know what gluten is, they might see this product as healthier based on an article they read on Facebook. Periodically, there are some articles and products that are true and fantastic shared. One of the great aspects of social media is the ease of sharing new discoveries. Not everything posted is dishonest, it is knowing how to distinguish the difference. Learning the facts and educating yourself on the best way to be the healthiest you. Food is a great part of our culture, and as Americans, we are all trying to become healthier. We look at our social media accounts every day on multiple platforms. Our friend is showing off their latest acai bowl, or a recipe for keto cookies. We strive to be healthier like them, but is that really what healthy is? Gluten is a protein in bread that created the elasticity and fluffiness. According to an article published in the Journal of Pediatrics, interest in gluten-sensitivity sky rocked in 2013. With only 10% claiming to have true gluten concerns, others think going gluten-free is healthier and digestive friendly. Another term popping up on social media is celiac disease, which refers to ones body not having the enzymes to digest gluten. However, it is highly unlikely that you are one with the disease. It has been shown that only 1% of the population is missing that enzyme (Reilly 2008). For those individuals living life gluten-free is a necessity and should be taken seriously. There are many fad diets that revolve around taking gluten out of the diet. The latest fad diet to come out of these gluten concerns is the keto diet, others that have been popular are Atkins and paleo. While I am sure you will be quick to refer to your friend Suzy who lost 25 pounds on the keto diet. How she posts daily a picture of her healthy fatty, meat meals, sans carbohydrates. A diet that is based on high protein and fat, but low carbohydrates, trying to trick your body into reaching a state of ketosis. Which is when your body uses protein as a fuel source, as opposed to carbohydrates. A promising benefit of the keto diet has been observed amongst the epileptic population (1.2 percent of the total population). Studies do exist to support this claim, but they are only small scale with no conclusive evidence (Hopkins, et al. 2008). In conclusion, diets that lack gluten are only targeted and beneficial towards a very small population. Despite the growing popularity of social media. An intriguing fact to think about is according to the U.S National Library of Medicine, it is estimated that 65% of the population is lacking the lactase enzyme, or lactose intolerant. Most common in people of Asian descent (2018). However, when was the last time a friend posted on social media about cutting lactose out of a diet? That wouldnt be good for the milk companies, one of Americas largest economic foundations. According to a research study done by the Global Dairy Industry, in 2014 the dairy industry was expected to be worth 335.8 billion dollars (Reportbuyer 2014). Maybe gluten is just a cover for lactose? A large-scale study, funded by the national institute of health, involving 15,428 adults over the course of 25 years, assessed high, normal, and low carbohydrate diets. As a result, they found that both high and low carbohydrate diets were linked to higher mortality than a normal carbohydrate diet. Sidelmann and his collogues found animal-based low carbohydrate diets, which are more prevalent in North American and European populations, should be discouraged (Seidelmann, et al. 2018). Overall, no matter what Suzy and your other friends are posting, a moderate diet has proven to be the best diet. Mangosteens, Golgi berries, and acai what do these all have in common? Well other than being hard to pronounce, they have all been deemed by popular vote as a superfood. These foods have been set apart as cures to cancers, heart diseases, and even death. Since we get most of our news from social media, why should we doubt these claims? Especially when the research is coming from well-known universities or mainstream news organizations. A superfood according to Google, a nutrient-rich food considered to be especially beneficial for health and well-being. Fairly vague, right? That is because there is no true definition of a superfood. When held to the defined standards of being beneficial for health and well-being, carrots and apples, or any other whole food would be considered a superfood. So why set these foreign sounding foods apart? It all comes down to money. Robert Davis in his book, The Healthy Skeptic: Cutting Through the Hype about Your Health, he describes a five-step process on how a food becomes a superfood. It all begins with a food manufacturer funds research by a university, they come up with some beneficial findings. Those findings get published. Then, the public relations person from the company blow the findings out of proportions. They use various advertisements and marketing schemas to pop-up on your social media. Next thing you know, you are buying that overpriced exotic pill that dotes being simple and the cure to insert your problem here. The food manufacturer that funded the research just made an instant profit by prying off your weaknesses and abusing marketing (37-42). When it comes to marketing in the food industry, it is hard to distinguish the truth from the trendy. As a society see a claim being marketed back by a research study and automatically assume it is the truth. However, corporate funding for research in nutrition makes it possible to expand and create new studies. It is agreed by most researchers that using corporate money as a bribe to fabricate results would be ludicrous, but the evidence does indicate there is an association with research outcomes and corporate sponsorship. It has been shown that in numerous studies involving milk, soft drinks, and juices studies funded by the industry had a greater positive finding compared to independent studies. As Professor Marion Nestle puts it, it seems counter-intuitive to think that companies would sponsor studies like to produce unfavorable results. (Davis 28). Nestle has a whole book dedicated to the topic of marketing, politics, and nutrition, What to Eat. She states, to make informed decisions about food choice, you need truth in advertising, the whole truth, and nothing but (511). She brings up a point that very few industries profit on us eating healthy. It is more profitable to prevent illnesses than to treat them (11). Think about that next time you see an ad on Facebook for a healthy processed snack. Social media has become an easy marking platform for industries. Be sure to look for randomized clinical trials, where individuals are randomly selected to receive the placebo or the factor being tested, these tend to be the most credible. Thesis studies are the hardest to fabricate. One of the least credible research myths that we fall into is animal research. These studies can have an unpredictable outcome on humans, and therefore should not be linked for credibility. If you have questions about a study that popped up on your social media, look to see what kind of study was done, if it was peer-reviewed and who paid for the study. These two indicators can account for credibility on the research. Another great tool is using a site called Quackwatch who is dedicated to combat health-related myths and frauds (Davis 28-29). Davis, Robert J. The Healthy Skeptic: Cutting through the Hype about Your Health. University of California Press, 2008. 37-42 Hopkins, I. J., and Betty C. Lynch. Use of Ketogenic Diet in Epilepsy in Childhood. Journal of Pediatrics and Child Health. vol.10, no.1111, 10 Mar. 2008. PAGE NUMBER Lactose Intolerance Genetics Home Reference NIH. U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, 11 Dec. 2018, ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/lactose-intolerance#statistics. Nestle, Marion. What to Eat. North Point Press/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007. 11, 511 Reilly, Norelle R. The Gluten-Free Diet: Recognizing Fact, Fiction, and Fad. The Journal of Pediatrics, Mosby, 13 May 2016, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022347616300622?via=ihub. ReportBuyer. The Milky Way. PR Newswire: News Distribution, Targeting, and Monitoring, Global Dairy Industry, 19 Aug. 2014, www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/global-dairy-industrythe-milky-way-271782401.html. Seidelmann, Sara B, et al. Dietary Carbohydrate Intake and Mortality: A Prospective Cohort Study and Meta-Analysis. The Lancet Public Health, Elsevier, Sept. 2018.

The Heros Journey The Call to Adventure

In the second part of the heros journey, the hero is presented with a problem or challenge. For readers to be involved and to care about the hero, they need to know early on exactly what the stakes are, and the higher the better, says Christopher Vogler, author of The Writers Journey: Mythic Structure. What price will the hero pay if he or she accepts the challenge, or doesnt? The Call to Adventure can come in the form of a message, letter, phone call, dream, temptation, last straw, or loss of something precious. It is usually delivered by a herald. In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy’s call to adventure comes when Toto, representing her intuition, is captured by Miss Gulch, escapes, and Dorothy follows her instincts (Toto) and runs away from home with him. Refusal of the Call Almost always, the hero initially balks at the call. He or she is being asked to face the greatest of all fears, the terrible unknown. This hesitation signals the reader that the adventure is risky, the stakes are high, and the hero could lose fortune or life, Vogler writes. There is charm and satisfaction in seeing the hero overcome this reluctance. The stiffer the refusal, the more the reader enjoys seeing it worn down. How is your hero resisting the call to adventure? The hero’s doubt also serves to warn the reader that he may not succeed on this adventure, which is always more interesting than a sure thing, and it is often a threshold guardian who sounds the alarm and cautions the hero not to go, according to Vogler. Dorothy encounters Professor Marvel who convinces her to return home because the road ahead is too dangerous. She goes home, but powerful forces have already been set in motion, and there is no going back. She’s alone in the empty house (a common dream symbol for an old personality structure) with only her intuition. Her refusal is pointless.