Month: January 2016

“The Poverty Problem in Syracuse: Matt’s Memo
This article points out that the thoughtless design of the city of Syracuse has been a large contributor to the prevalence of poverty. The layout of the city, especially the interstate, has divided Syracuse into sections and caused isolation and increased poverty problems. A quote that stood out to me was by Valerie Hill who said, “Poverty was designed to happen. It does not happen just because. It was written into the plan.” I thought that was a pretty powerful statement and definitely pointed fingers at the setup of the city as being one of the root causes that allowed Syracuse to get so bad.
http://cnycentral.com/news/local/the-poverty-problem-in-syracuse-matts-memo

“The Cancer Correlation”
This article postulates the correlation between radioactivity in the Colombian River and cancer rates in the Oregon counties bordering the river. Researchers noticed that starting from the Hartford Plant and continuing downstream, cancer rates were higher in the areas next to the river and highest particularly around the lower Colombian. I chose to look at Oregon because both my aunt and uncle who live in Port Land have been recently diagnosed with Cancer and the discussion in class made me wonder if the environment there led to them both having it.
http://www.intimeandplace.org/Hanford/activities/cancercorrelation.html

• http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2015/09/syracuse_has_nations_highest_poverty_concentrated_among_blacks_hispanics.html

This article above shows where Syracuse ranks among other cities in the United States based on the concentration of poverty this city encounters. It reiterates our discussion in class about Syracuse jumping to the number one spot of the most poorest city in the country. The article mentioned that the reason why Syracuse has experienced such high levels of poverty if because of suburban development that came at the expense of the central city and older suburbs.

• http://blog.syracuse.com/opinion/2012/06/health_care_disparities_povert.html

This article mentions how the poverty in Syracuse leads to poor health in many minority communities. Thus, poverty leads to many health issues such as obesity, asthma, etc. It also speaks about the effects it has on kids and school.

 

Examples of Public Health Writing:

• “Eating Animals” by Jonathan Safran Foer –> This books deals with big slaughterhouses in the US and the big meat companies that used to exist in the 70-80’s. This book also reminds me of the essay by Susan Hess about end of life care specifically in animals and the way companies would kill animals in a cold-hearted way just so that the public can eat meat.
• This article discusses the health issues sugar has on people’s diets. As society is becoming more advanced, people are realizing how much of an impact sugar plays in people’s health http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/01/sugar-is-the-new-public-health-enemy-1/423207/