Privacy settings may have prevented some items from showing.
Please update your search criteria and try again
The home for the 2019 Salk Health Activist Fellowship.
We are going to use this platform to be able to communicate effectively, collaborate, and build each other up for this fellowship. Activism starts here. Let us learn and use each other's strengths to the best of our ability.
Together, we can change the world.
Pittsbrugh Air Quality is continually ranked one of the worst in the nation. Allegheny County ranks in the top 2 percent in cancer risks from air pollution and Pittsburgh's childhood asthma rates are higher than the national average (22% compared to 8%). High asthma rates keep kids out of school, impacts learning and overall wellbeing.
The goal of this group is two-fold;
1. To implement the Air Quality Flag Program into Pittsburgh-area schools. This program utilizes the EPA's Air Quality Index to report on air quality conditions using a flag color system. When air quality is unhealthy, people can take actions to reduce exposure to air pollution.
2. School-wide health surverys to monitor asthma symptoms on bad or unhealthy air quality days compared to good air days. This will allow collection of data from many children to correllate air quality to asthma prevlance.
The home for the 2018 Salk Health Activist Fellowship.
We are going to use this platform to be able to communicate effectively, collaborate, and build each other up for this fellowship. Activism starts here. Let us learn and use each other's strengths to the best of our ability.
Together, we can change the world.
The Health Activist Network Action Group is the home for all Network members.
All things Network-related are encouraged.
Right Care is a human right. It places the health and wellbeing of patients first. Right Care is affordable and effective. It is compassionate, honest, and safe. Right Care brings healing and comfort to patients, and satisfaction to clinicians. Achieving Right Care will require radically transforming how care is delivered and financed.
The Right Care Alliance (RCA) is a grassroots coalition of clinicians, patients, and community members organizing to make health care institutions accountable to communities and put patients, not profits, at the heart of health care.
We affect change by
- Conducting local campaigns on right care issues such as
primary care access and high drug prices - Collaborating with others to identify areas of improvement within clinical specialties
- Speaking up about the systemic problems in our health care system through op-eds, videos, and other media
- Listening to experiences of community members and sharing stories
- Mobilizing for direct action on a national level through events like the March for Science
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), stressful or traumatic events that a child experiences while growing up, are proven risk factors for future developmental, behavioral, and emotional distubances. For example, ACEs can impact an indiviual's lifespan, sustance abuse, high-risk sexual behavior, pregancy outcomes, and depression levels. Considering the drastic impact ACEs can have on a child's future, we believe it is imperative to increase protective factors against them and investigate how to mitigate their effects. These effort are driven by the goal of impairing the tragectory of negative outcomes ACEs induce in order to promote a safer future for children disadvantaged at a young age.
I believe that an interdisciplinary, multilevel intervention is essential for the transformation of health care from a system that is reactive and medically focused to one that is proactive and holistically based. Each of us fellows will have experience working at different levels of the health care systems, including the interpersonal, organizational, communal, and public policy. Multilevel change can be achieved by working together and building upon the strengths and expertise that my colleagues and I bring to the table.
Although many aspects of the social work and public health fields inspire me, I am especially passionate about helping the uninsured and underinsured understand how to utilize their health insurance and how to be consumer advocates for health care reform. According to the Pennsylvania Department of Health, Allegheny County has an uninsured rate of 9.9%. Individuals who are uninsured experience worse health outcomes than insured adults do. Studies repeatedly demonstrate that uninsured individuals are less likely to receive care for chronic diseases and health conditions (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2016). Moreover, many individuals are not aware of how to access available health care or what benefits they are due once they have health insurance.
As an individual who has social capital, I often find the health care system complex and arduous to comprehend. Therefore, I care deeply about empowering those who need health care and who lack the knowledge that will allow them to successfully maneuver through the intricacies of the health care system. While I recognize that existing organizations already address this population and their needs, I hope that the interdisciplinary approach endorsed by the Salk Fellowship will build upon and expand the current work being done. In addition, current policies are looking to undermine and spread misinformation about the United States’ health care system (“The Same Agency That Runs Obamacare Is Using Taxpayer Money to Undermine It,” New York Times, 2017). Therefore, it is imperative that health care activists work together to thwart policies that undermine and confuse health care consumers.
Your voice matters and understanding how the health care system works can help you become a better advocate.
We are going to use this platform to be able to communicate effectively, collaborate, and build each other up for this fellowship. Activism satrts here, let us learn and use each other's strengths to the best of our ability.
We are here to help, and are open to any and all questions that you may possess. If we don't know the answer, we will do our best to find someone who does. Together, we can change the world.
When patients are selecting a surgeon to perform a procedure it would be helpful for the patient to know the surgeon's personal history of complications when performing similar surgeries so that the patient could select the "best" surgeon.