My Discipline

In this blog post, I will have to search the mass media to discover what it is that people in my field do to communicate with one another.


1. What do students in your program or department learn how to do?

Militaryrace. "United States Public Health Service". 06/12/07 via
Wikimedia. Public Domain of the United States.

      In my discipline of the Public Health Program, the Environmental and Occupational Health track, students learn about health risk assessments, safety fundamentals, food and drugs in our society, and how to be prepared for a life in the public health field.  The students learn how to improve the state of environmental and community health through teaching, service activities and research. This program will prepare students for the professional practice.  There is specialized training in the recognition, evaluation, and control of health hazards.  The course work is designed to provide us with comprehensive knowledge of chemical, physical, and biological sources of exposure, material toxicity, legal and professional health standards, and engineering and administrative methods for achieving safe and healthful environments for the public.

2.  What do people who get degrees in this field usually go on to do for work?
       People who get degrees in Public Health have a multitude of options after graduation.  There are some people who go to graduate school, nursing school, or even medical school right after graduation.  If you want to actually stay in the field of public health some examples of jobs that are available include: doing consultant work for disease prevention, conducting air quality sampling and surveying, serving in the Peace Corps, going into the CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention), working as a research assistance with a nonprofit organization, or a research scientist for the state, and so so many more.

3.  What drew you to this field?
      I came to college thinking that I wanted to do nursing.  However after talking to many different kinds of people all over the campus, I discovered the field of public health and I kind of fell in love with it.  The prerequisites of the major are all of the basic science courses that I wanted to take again anyways and I learned that it was a good major if I wanted to go into Occupational Therapy.  Learning about helping others in your community and around the world was something that just really inspired me to complete all the pre-reqs so that I could apply.  A lot of the people that I talked to who recommended that I research this major were the kind of people that I could see myself working alongside in the future.

4. Name three of the leaders/most exciting people involved in this field right now in 2016. Why are they interesting or exciting to you? These could be individual people or specific companies, organizations, businesses or non-profits. Hyperlink us to a homepage professional website for each person, if possible.

•      Professor Tord Kjellstrom:  He has worked at the World Health Organization (WHO) for 8 years as the epidemiologist.  He focuses his research on lead, cadmium and mercury poisoning; asbestos cancer; air pollution; traffic accidents; road transport; urbanization; globalization; sustainability; health indicators; and health equity. Kjellstrom is just researching things that are all over the place, yet they all work to help the better the health of the world.  He is just so impressive and inspiring to me.  Not that I want to research road transport or air pollution, it is great to know that there are people who are researching it so that the world will be better off from their efforts. 
• The International Conference of Public Health: This is an organization that started only two years ago.  It will be held in Sri Lanka in July of 2016.  This committee devotes itself to supply the attendees updated information related to public health all around the world.  It was created to bridge the gap between research and policy in order to create a global platform to discuss evidence based health policies and interventions in public health.  I think that this is so incredible.  The world is working together to improve the health of multiple countries.  
• McKinsey & Company:  Michael Conway and Adam Sabow (both directors of the company) work with leading healthcare institutions and funding bodies to improve health outcomes for the people in the greatest need globally.  They act in partnership with foundations, governments, bilateral and multilateral agencies, and healthcare companies to address urgent public healthcare challenges affecting some of the world's poorest and most vulnerable communities.  In the past 5 years, they have undertaken over 440 public health projects in more than 35 countries.  I find this also incredibly inspiring.  The whole reason why I want to do public health is to learn how to help the health of the world.  This company does exactly that. 

5. What are the names of three leading academic/scholarly journals in your field? Where are they published? Give us the names and locations of at least 3. 

• American Journal of Public Health : This is published in Washington D.C. and has been around for almost 100 years.  
• Elsevier: This is published in the United Kingdom, mainly in London and Scotland.  However, there are a multitude of people involved in this journal from all over the world.  There are some editors from Hong Kong, Australia, the United States, Switzerland, and even Sweden.  
• Journal of Public Health Research: This is published online from Pavia, Italy however it is an Open-Access journal on the internet so it can be peer-reviewed from anywhere in the world.