Implications Done Right

Clean water source. Hygiene. Ebola containment.  These public health priorities and crises often seem like issues that only matter for developing countries.  Indeed, the CDC and other authorities have issued ample assurances that given the quality of our healthcare system and our very different cultural practices, the risk of an ebola outbreak in the US is very low.  That doesn't mean that we've learned our lessons.

As Aaron E. Carroll of the New York Times points out in an excellent article, Guinea worms (and ebola) aside, we are still battling issues of clean water, hygiene, and quarantine in the US.  And we pay for not learning such lessons with illnesses, deaths, and high costs.  As he writes:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 48 million Americans become ill from food-borne illnesses each year. More than 125,000 hospitalizations are caused by food-borne illness, and about 3,000 deaths. Many, if not most, of these illnesses could be prevented if people properly stored, cleaned, cooked and refrigerated their food correctly. 

Between 1976 and 2007, deaths from influenza ranged from 3,000 to 49,000 a year. The vast majority of deaths from influenza occur in people who are 65 years of age or older. Proper hygiene and staying home during the infectious stage of the illness are still mainstays of flu care. But we also have a vaccine for this illness. Too few people get it. It’s estimated that two years ago, if we had just gotten the influenza vaccination rate up to 70 percent, up from the 45 percent we achieved, we could have prevented an additional 4.4 million illnesses and 30,000 hospitalizations.

Carroll connects global health crises with your health and deftly demonstrates the importance of persuasive communication as well as practicing what we preach.  We know what the answers are and we need to be compelled into putting them into practice.  Lives and dollars are at stake.

Sanitation Done Right: Number Two Edition (Part II)

Matt Damon is going on a toilet strike.  Are you with him?



I'm "on hiatus", but couldn't resist a good toilet video.  Like the Gates Foundation #2 cartoon, Damon is making a link between toilets, sanitation, and health.  What he lacks in substance, he makes up with humor and good genes.  It's far funnier than the usual Celebrity Charity Sell, and even features a cameo from my favorite character actor.  Unfortunately, Dumb Ways To Die set a very high bar for effective, sticky, and fun "Done Right" campaigns.  This doesn't meet it.

The Strike with Me page skimps on information so it's hard for visitors engage meaningfully.  We are encouraged to donate and participate, but the who-what-whys are unclear.  Water.org (the organization behind the video) is much more informative but harder to get to.  Yet despite the flaws, Damon + toilets + public health is a potent combination.  Almost as potent as Matt Damon + Matthew McConaughey accent.

Sanitation Done Right, Number Two Edition

The Gates Foundation is doing great work on water, sanitation, and hygiene around the globe and has been in the news lately for a special campaign: Reinvent the Toilet.  As the video above it explains, this work focuses on innovating the way we go about our business, or quite literally, "getting our sh*t together."  The video is clever, easy to understand, and informative. Not to mention generous with the poop humor. All good public health stories should have a poop joke.

Sanitation Done Right

This story in the New York Times got me so excited that I actually pulled the post I put up earlier today.  This is about public health at its most basic: toilets.  The article features a Harvard School of Public Health winter session project that mapped out available toilets in a Mumbai slum.  I love that it's a project that's so easy to understand and yet so meaningful to the people, NGO workers, and government officials of the area because it impacts their lives and work at such a basic level.  A good public health story is one that hits home to everyone.

(We just met and I'm trying to establish my credibility here, so I don't want to weird you out too much.  Please don't click on the album if this will negatively affect your view of public health or me.  But toilets and public health are just about 2 of my favorite things to talk about.  And I have a photo album of interesting toilets from around the world to show for it.)

O The Toilets I've Been