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.

Friday, April 20, 2012

HIV Exposure in Iowa

Last week, I went to an event that was put on by the Sexual Health Alliance of Johnson and Linn Counties called HIV Transmission in Iowa: Criminalization and the Changing Legal Landscape. I didn't know before attending the event that Iowa had some of the strictest HIV exposure laws in the country. I also didn't know that when someone who knows they're HIV-positive exposes another person to HIV without disclosing their HIV status, it's treated more harshly than the same situation is when other communicable diseases are involved, including diseases of similar severity (such as Hepatitis B). I also didn't realize that in many states, including Iowa, it doesn't matter if the HIV-positive person wears a condom, is taking their medication to lower their viral load, or doesn't actually transmit HIV - it's just the exposure to HIV without disclosure that matters legally (with no regard to risk).

They played a clip from this documentary, which looks very powerful and interesting. Nick Rhoades, who is featured in the documentary, spoke at the event.



I'm definitely going to check out this documentary once it's available.



In other news, right now everyone is really excited about the Building Dedication, which is today. I'm really looking forward to it, especially since Thomas Frieden (director of the CDC), Harrison Spencer (president and CEO of the Association of Schools of Public Health), and Senator Tom Harkin will be there!

I also just got back from the Iowa Governor's Conference on Public Health, which was definitely a great networking experience. I met a lot of interesting people and learned about some great things that are happening across the state.

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Cancer Complexity

Lately I've been reading a lot of articles complicating the idea that finding cancer early is always a good thing. For example, I just read this NPR article about a Norwegian study that found that mammography can lead to the "over-diagnosis" of breast cancer by finding a tumor "that would never have gone on to cause symptoms or death." This is somewhat similar to some of the criticisms of the P.S.A. test for prostate cancer, which caused a lot of men to get treated for prostate cancer when they likely would have died of something else before the prostate cancer caused any problems.

It seems like the critiques of these screening tests go beyond whether or not the screening tests have high enough specificity and sensitivity (both concepts I first learned about in an epidemiology class here!), and have more to do with the nature of the cancers themselves. It's an interesting idea to me that may be some types of cancers aren't as well-suited for a screening test, since finding them early doesn't lower mortality. Apparently that's the cause with testicular cancer, which, according to the Mayo Clinic, is "highly treatable at all stages, so finding testicular cancer early doesn't make a cure more likely." Judging from this new Norwegian study and from other recent studies, it sounds like with breast cancer, there may some types of breast cancer that are good to find early while there are a few types of breast cancer that might not have the same benefits to being found early.

All of this adds a lot of complexity to an already complicated health problem. The fact that even within a kind of cancer there may be some types that benefit to screening while other types don't is really complicated to communicate to patients. I think generally speaking it's still very much agreed that the mammography, the Pap test, and the various kinds of colorectal cancer screening tests are still good and important to do. One harm of these findings is that it may lead people to not get screening tests done, since they figure "What's the point?", when in reality these screening tests still save lives.

Anyway, that's just been on my brain lately!

I should also note that April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month and there are a lot of great events coming up if you're in the Iowa City area. I know I'll definitely be going to the Take Back the Night rally and the Clothesline Project.

And this is an article my friend showed me that I read recently that was interesting: White Until Proven Black: Imagining Race in the Hunger Games - Anna Holmes, The New Yorker
This doesn't have to do with health; it's about race in books (specifically the Hunger Games but it branches out from there). I'm a fan of the Hunger Games and was really disturbed by some of the racist responses to the casting in the movie and I thought this article explored what those responses mean.