Ten Weeks and A Potential Lifetime: A Reflection

Time is a strange phenomenon. It is an indefinite progress of existence that is paradoxically both measured and relative. Time makes the past, present, and future seem hopelessly intertwined. Perhaps that explains how ten weeks ago seems like just yesterday.

Ten weeks ago, blogging was just one of those many new ventures waiting to be explored by a college freshman looking to leave her minute mark in the world. And now, two months later, blogging has become a weekly tradition and Public Health has become a blossoming passion.

Two-thirds of my “Introduction to Public Health” survey course has finished, and I find myself to be completely enchanted by what Public Health has to offer. We have built upon the ever-expanding definition of Public Health by exploring its multiple facets and endless implications in the local and global community. Essentially, we could extract that Public Health is a broad term, meant to preside over all the factors that contribute to the wellbeing of the Earth’s population. But, throughout the course, I began to realize how heavily Public Health relies on the connection between epidemiological knowledge and policy to place Public Health measures into effect.

Epidemiology, medically, focuses on the incident and prevalent distribution of certain diseases in populations. However, Public Health takes the biological importance of disease and examines its context. Interestingly, by looking at a combination of demographics and social and economic details of a population, Public Health can begin working preventively.

At this point, policy plays an integral role in shaping the efficacy of Public Health. Increasing the accessibility and availability of health resources and creating structural, physical, and cultural changes largely determines how successful and Public Health endeavor will be. With epidemiological data, policy can be structured as a primary prevention mechanism.

In this respect, I definitely underestimated Public Health’s social influence. When we consider “health,” we think “medicine.” Yet, medicine is only one aspect of Public Health, as the rest is nestled in the web of our environment and our behaviors. The social determinants of Public Health are extraordinary. Simply by bettering the environment in which we live or altering a mindset through education or structural improvements, Public Health can play an active role in our lives without explicitly being present.

This is the beauty of Public Health – every discipline is linked to each other. And moreover, in Public Health, everyone is linked to each other; it’s global and social.

Health, and everything it encompasses, is interconnected and dependent on our collaborative efforts. Of course, this breadth complicates Public Health. But at the same time, it heightens my interest in it. In my very first blogging escapade, I had said that understanding the implications of healthcare on an international level and interacting with global communities would be my path to reconnecting with the zeal that life has to offer. And after ten weeks, International Health and Development intrigues me even more. If anything, realizing the immensity of the term Public Health and gathering knowledge about its diverse aspects has inspired to me learn even more.

Time is indeed a strange phenomenon. Ten weeks have flown by. But ten weeks in the second row of Mergenthaler 111 have helplessly intertwined Public Health with my life, for the better.