Assignment #8

I think that many of the topics that we have gone over in the first half of the course have been very interesting. Interesting in the way that my mind was exposed to various terminology and themes and at the same time the professors and presenters gave me tools to learn the proper ways of approaching and developing theories about public health issues. I especially enjoyed learning about international health, epidemiology, and chronic and infectious diseases. I think these areas were intriguing to me because they seemed to overlap the most into the medical field out of all of the other topics we covered. I would really like to work in the international health field mostly because of the grand scheme of the global boundlessness of that field. It was also interesting to learn the facts behind obesity in America because it is a dire issue currently plaguing our nation. I know several people that suffer from obesity and learning about it makes me want to make the public more aware of how to protect and improve their health to prevent obesity from affecting them.

I did not expect to learn about injury prevention during this public health course. I had not previously considered injury prevention to be one the responsibilities of the public health field. Before this course when public health came to mind I thought about illness and not about general maintenance of a health lifestyle. Now after taking half of this course I understand that injury prevention is a large and important part of public health and that it is inevitably a part of everything in our lives. There would be much more harm ready to hurt many individuals in injury prevention was not an integral part of public health responsibilities.

I think that I have the same interests before, but now they have expanded. I now realize that issues such as obesity and smoking that are plaguing our nation are just as important as issues that need to be addressed globally. I understand that nearly every topic within public health can be translated into the medical world and that a good base and knowledge in this discipline would prepare me for a great future in the medical field. My interest level is seemingly the same, if not now a little more amplified. Now that I have been given a peep as to how the future of our nation and the world as a whole, relies almost solely on maintenance and advancements in public health, I truly understand public health's importance and would really love to be a part of it.