Writers Unbound

I decided not to choose which peice to publish, I will do a blog for each one. Here’s a rare glimpse into the musings of a man well spoken.

First though, on one of his blogs he creates six word stories. Try some on your own. My first: snack. i ate pecans. peace.

http://digitaldoorway.blogspot.com/2009/01/reaching-out-to-margins.html Use this link for the rest of the story…

Yesterday, I received a call from a young college student with an interest in Public Health who wants to volunteer at our health department. After a telephone conversation and a string of emails, I gleaned that she is from Cape Verde, speaks Cape Verdean Creole (Portuguese married with African dialects) as her first language, and also speaks and understands some Spanish. Thinking quickly, I realized that this is a golden opportunity to utilize this individual’s language and cultural knowledge to reach out to the Cape Verdean community in our town. While not as sizeable as our Chinese, Tibetan, Cambodian, and Latino communities, I know for a fact that a pocket of Cape Verdeans are scattered amongst the population, and this young woman may be the key to doing some important outreach to a marginalized segment of our municipality.

The director of our health department is dedicated to issues of racial justice and social equality, and a significant multi-year social justice grant has given our department just the push it needed to bring to life her much appreciated vision. With a part-time worker devoted to fulfilling the social justice grant and a Cambodian outreach worker dedicated to the Khmer community in our area, we are well aware that there are ethnic and racial groups that also deserve our attention.

While public health does indeed involve immunizations and infectious disease surveillance, the 21st century has brought the very enlightened awareness that the control of chronic disease is where we should be focusing in the wake of the 20th century’s successes vis-a-vis the virtual eradication of vaccine-preventable diseases such as polio and measles. However, to control chronic diseases and improve quality of life and lifespan, we must also ascertain why and how health disparities occur amongst various ethnic, racial and socioeconomic groups, subsequently taking concerted action to assuage those disparities. From infant mortality to rates of diabetes, people of color are more burdened than their caucasian counterparts. While some genetic differences may account for a small portion of these differences, it has been demonstrated time and again that socioeconomics and the very stress of living in a racist society can indeed have a significant impact on health outcomes. Of this we are now certain, although some are still not convinced.
(This story just gets better…click the link and then send messages to NurseKeith at twitter, or leave comments on his blog). Mary

Nursekeith may be a blogger for hire…