Public Health Trends Across Neighborhoods
Turner's last post analyzed the role freeways play in the division of neighborhoods by race/wealth/class/socio-economic status and questioned whether the placement of these freeways was purposeful. He also considered how these borders might have or might still lead to the spread or containment of diseases in a single place.
As we move into our second podcast focusing on public health issues within our cities, I have considered how all our neighborhoods connect. We are all analyzing the public health trends within our individual areas, but maybe there is potential to collaborate. If certain public health issues overlap across neighborhoods, we might be able to find out more. Considering this in connection with Turner's post, my question is this:
Are there certain public health issues or epidemics that are similar across neighborhoods (historically or modern day)? If you think there are, are there any specific examples that you know of? Are these potential illnesses or public health concerns the same or different across neighborhoods due to characteristics of the area such as poverty or wealth? In this, what other aspects of a community should one consider that may define trends of public health epidemics?
I honestly would not be surprised if we all encountered similar public health issues/ epidemics across neighborhoods in doing our research for the next podcast. I think this has to do with the fact that most of our communities have more than one thing in common: some are stereotypically characterized by lower-income families, others have inhabitants that are majority one race or another, and many are well-known for the difficult language barriers that exist when outsiders come into the neighborhood. That said, I think one public health issue we could all encounter is a lack of people with knowledge of how to get medical insurance and inadequate access to healthcare. This could have to do with poverty, a population of immigrants who cannot speak nor understand English, and also a faulty surrounding area/ government that is unwilling to aid these neighborhoods and provide the services that they need. One common program that I have heard other groups talking about that we have found in Highland Park as well is a facility that helps people sign up for MediCal, understand insurance, and become aware of the services available to them. On the topic of your last question, I think one other aspect of a community that may define a public health trend is an influx of newcomers/ residents to a community and the process of gentrification that they bring with them. In the next few weeks, our group will be looking at how gentrification has changed and affected the public health scene in Highland Park (both positively and negatively) and analyzing these changes.
ReplyDeleteI bet that the public health issue of drug use crosses all neighborhoods. The different types of drugs people use probably depends on access and wealth. Also how it affects people is different. In wealthier communities, people might be able to afford rehab whereas poorer communities have to deal with issues of drug use and abuse alone. However, access to alcohol and drugs is widespread regardless of income, and alcoholism/ addiction don’t see neighborhoods as boundaries.
ReplyDeleteI think the public health issue of alternative chi therapy would apply across different neighborhoods. Chi forms the basis for all interpretations of health, and analyzing the intersectional fengshui of neighborhoods may play an important role for us in analyzing the spiritual identities of different communities.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, what I'm writing only makes about 70% sense to me, but I think that the way that neighborhoods are shaped in relationship to each other, specifically how routes of traffic and people movement cut across neighborhoods are important. Afterall, the flow of traffic is essentially the flow of life energy, or blue chi through people's life which affect their mental and spiritual chi.
The mountains are the greatest source of Chi because supposedly the fengshui of a place follows gravitational pulls. However, Chi flow becomes redirected through created structures which leads to the development of some places over others.
I believe that there are some universals when it comes to all diseases regardless of where and who it is infecting. People will always be somewhat scared and skittish when a new disease arises and will always look towards something (or someone) to place the blame. When the blame has been identified, that's when people start trying to save themselves and others. Whether that's medicine, avoidance, or hostility towards the source, people try to react accordingly. This formula is the same among all cases I believe, for better or worse.
ReplyDeleteThe difference start in the varying 'cure' or avoidance techniques people engage in. The wealthier, the obviously better acess to potentially better medicine. If something infects a more popular (not wealthier, popular) neighborhood, then it will recieve more public attention versus a less notable neighborhood, would recieve a less amount of attention.
I think Los Angeles would be a city of communities to especially display overlapping health outbreaks/ epidemics. While some neighborhoods like Pasadena have more space than human interaction, this neighborhood structure is rare in LA. There is a larger number of neighborhoods that are so close in proximity that the spread of disease would be able to infect many at once. Another pattern seen in the structural set up of the city is the spread of resources. Neighborhoods that are located in the heart of Los Angeles tend to be more overcrowded and lack the resources to stay healthy. Public health seems to play its own role in dividing up and distributing associations throughout the city... and these resulting associations begin to define the people who fall victim to the spread of disease, therefore impacting and limiting the access to aid even more.
ReplyDeleteWe've discussed how Los Angeles is a melting pot but also segregated, I think that public health and disease are able to exceptions to this rule (for the most part). Obviously, the amount of drug use and disease will be different in downtown than in Westwood, but for the neighborhoods that we are studying, I think many of them suffer from similar epidemics. However, lower class neighborhoods will have less public resources regarding safety, and especially less availability to clean needles. Just like anything in any big city, everything seems to depend on race and wealth. Wealthier people have access to cleaner, safer drugs and cleaner, safer drug paraphernalia, while poorer people don't have access to the same luxuries that wealthy people have.
ReplyDeleteI think that there are definitely similar trends regarding health issues and epidemics across all the neighborhoods that we are exploring and learning about. I think that these trends are due to the similarities between our neighborhoods such as race and class similarities. Some health issues could include mental health and drug abuse. I think that because our neighborhoods are mostly low-income neighborhoods there are less resources to educate its inhabitants regarding public health in the community contributing to the problem.
ReplyDeleteThere have been many, many diseases that spread from one community to another. While some diseases may start about in impoverished neighborhoods (which is due to the lack to cleanliness/resources to stay healthy) they can find their way around to different communities and groups of people without any consideration of their race, wealth, etc. An easy example that I can think of is AIDS. In the peak of this disease's deadliness, people from all different communities could be found with the disease because the disease didn't choose where to spread, it just spread. I would believe a trend that could define a health epidemic is the sanitation of that place that people are residents to. Increase in sanitation would and health check up obviously lead to fewer diseases while less sanitation and health check ups would lead to more disease cases.
ReplyDeleteI think that drug use and, in turn the disease of addiction and diseases spread by blood exchange such as HIV/AIDS, would be a common disease across communities. I think that it would be more common in poorer neighborhoods, but that could be an interesting topic to investigate. I think it would be important to look at gang activity and police activity in the neighborhood. I have a feeling that those aspects of a neighborhood would influence how much or little impact public health concerns have on the area. The difficult aspect of this topic is addressing the stigmatized parts of a community. I come to a similar place in this exploration that leaves me feeling somewhat guilty about being an outsider coming in, especially with a very intimate topic such as drug use and disease.
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ReplyDeleteI think there are tons of diseases and epidemics that cross community lines. I believe this is because people from all different communities interact in some way whether that’s through direct or indirect encounters. I also think there are shared diseases because no matter the economic, social, or racial status of a social community, people as a whole have similar issues when it comes to health and addictions. Obviously low-income neighborhoods are more prone to succumbing to diseases because of the lack of resources to contribute to public health but overall I believe every community shares similar issues.
There possibly could be different diseases within lower class communities and neighborhoods because since the area does not have as much money as the wealthier ones, the sanitation within the community would be so much lesser than that of more affluent communities. Regarding drug use/addiction and qualifying that as part of the diseases in communities and neighborhoods, there is a noticeable amount of more poor people afflicted with this disease rather than wealthier people.
ReplyDeleteI definitely think we would find similarities concerning public health in our different neighborhoods. Something that comes to mind would be access to resources in these neighborhoods, or lack of access to resources. All of the neighborhoods we are studying are primarily occupied by people of color and we have studies how these groups are commonly affected the most due to the lack of support/resources. I also think looking into the role that language plays into access would be interesting and might have similar results across our different neighborhoods.
ReplyDeleteThere are for sure diseases that transcend neighborhood lines. Diseases that come about as a result of a lack of sanitation, for example, could be found in multiple neighborhoods that have similar sanitation conditions. Another example is drug use, which tends to not be concentrated to certain neighborhoods. At the same time, epidemics can manifest themselves in ways unique to certain communities. That can be a result of multiple factors, including cultural norms and ethnic makeup. I think the aspects that should be considered for particular neighborhoods depend on that neighborhood, and having an overarching aspect to look for would take away from the particularity of all of our neighborhoods.
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