Katie Jones's Blog

Katie is from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She graduated from Grinnell College with a BA in History. She is a second year Master of Public Health student in the Community and Behavioral Health department at the University of Iowa. She works for the MPH Department and for the Iowa Cancer Consortium. She is interested in many public health topics, including health disparities, chronic disease prevention, sexual assault and domestic violence prevention, and health communication. In her spare time, she enjoys cycling and playing board games with friends.

This student blog is unedited and does not necessarily reflect the views of the College of Public Health or the University of Iowa.

Saturday, December 31, 2011

Goodbye 2011!

It's hard to believe that 2011 is almost over. 2011 was a very good year for me, although I'm looking forward to 2012. 2012 is both exciting and kind of scary to me, since it will be a major transition year. I'll be getting my MPH in the spring and (hopefully!) starting a new job in public health.

I hope that you had a good 2011 and are excited about 2012 as well. Before I head off, here is a great little video about one of the best things you can do for your health.



Have a happy and safe new year!

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

The Way We Get By

Even though it's finals week, I still find time to take an occasional break. Recently, I watched The Way We Get By, a 2009 documentary about three troop greeters in Bangor, Maine. (I'm a big fan of documentaries and have Netflix, which is a little dangerous because there are so many great documentaries, like this one, on there.)


This was an incredible documentary, although be prepared to cry about eight separate times if you watch it. The documentary provides a window into the lives of three elderly people who multiple times a week, often in the middle of the night, go to the Bangor International Airport to greet US troops either going to or returning from Iraq or Afghanistan. Although these three people greet the troops for a variety of reasons, one profound reason is that it helps create a sense of meaning and purposefulness for their lives.

I couldn't help viewing this film from a public health prospective. What I mean by that is that since this film documents the lives of three elderly people, it illustrates some unique issues that affect them. Each have their own health problems, including some more serious conditions like severe depression and heart problems, and cancer. I thought about the Health Communication class I took last summer (especially the lecture about health literacy) as I watched one of the main characters try to describe the treatment he receives for his prostate cancer or as another main character explained the pills she takes daily. In addition to health problems, one of the main characters also had a substantial amount of debt and struggled with loneliness and isolation. It definitely provides some perspective on many of the struggles elderly people face today.

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Food deserts

I recently did a group presentation on Food Deserts for my Environmental Health class. According to the CDC, food deserts are "areas that lack access to affordable fruits, vegetables, whole grains, low-fat milk, and other foods that make up the full range of a healthy diet." One thing we learned while researching food deserts is that there's even one in Iowa City. There's a great online tool available that was developed by the USDA that allows you to search by address and see if there's a food desert in your area. The food desert in Iowa City included the very place where we were giving our presentation (which was in the University of Iowa medical school building, part of the health sciences campus).

Even though I had known some about food deserts before this presentation, this USDA report to Congress about food deserts was very interesting and had a lot I didn't know before. One of their major findings was that access to food actually isn't an issue for the majority of people - the bigger issues may be easy access to unhealthy foods and the cost of food. They also outline a lot of neat potential solutions to food access issues, including community food projects, and some of the major gaps in the research.

Anyway, next week is the last week of classes and I have two big papers due on the same day and then two big tests on the same day (it seems like it always works out like that, doesn't it?), so I should probably get back to work!

Here are some articles I thought were interesting:

Emergency Room Closures Hit Minorities, Poor Hardest - Kristopher Husted, NPR
Depressing.

Xeni Jardin Live-Tweets Her First Mammogram, Is Diagnosed With Breast Cancer - Dodai Stewart, Jezebel
I've been reading BoingBoing for years - a blog that Xeni Jardin helped found - so when I read this, it almost felt like it had happened to someone I know. I thought this article had some good points about the fact that she live-tweeted her experience getting her first mammogram and her results is a "sign of How We Live Now." Stewart also notes that "Jardin's decision to update her followers as she went for her breast exam highlights a positive aspect of public sharing: The ability to reach out of a community, and have that community embrace you, in turn."

Scooby-Doo and Secular Humanism - Chris Sims, Comics Alliance
This has nothing to do with public health, I just thought it was a really good read. My partner Tim, who is a major Scooby-Doo fan, showed it to me, because I am not a big fan of the show (I've just always found out pretty boring and formulaic.) This article does make a compelling case for why Scooby-Doo is awesome. As a person who values rationalism, I was somewhat moved (although I still don't have an urge to watch Scooby-Doo).