Closing session: 'Justice is never partial. Justice is always indivisible'

"It is our responsibility to inspire each other."

Those were words from this afternoon's Closing Session speaker, author and social justice activist Angela Davis, who spoke to a standing room-only crowd on "Incarceration, Justice and Health." She began her time on stage expressing her sadness for those who now face the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy. But she quickly followed it up with anger at the many who continue to dismiss human responsibility for global warming.

She brought that energizing tone to her next topic: mass incarceration. She said it's a problem that's reached crisis proportions and for which racism plays no small part. In fact, Davis said the nation's prison industrial complex feeds on, benefits from and only entrenches structural racism. She noted that while blacks represent only 13 percent of the U.S. population, they make up nearly half of the overall prison population (Latino residents and American Indians are also disproportionately represented.) Shockingly, 25 percent of the world's incarcerated population is in the United States, home to only 5 percent of the global census, she said.

"Mass incarceration is in itself a public health hazard," Davis said.

Unfortunately, she noted that there are those who contend that some people are simply more inclined to commit criminal acts than others. But they forget — or dismiss — that certain communities are "saturated" with surveillance. While other communities may have similar rates of drug use or trafficking, there simply aren't any police there to catch them, she said.

"It's such a simple explanation as to why the vast majority of people in prison...come from a few ZIP codes," she told attendees, who could be heard murmuring in agreement.

Solving the problem is complex and like the practice of public health, it means focusing on institutions, not just on individuals, she said. People are yearning for a collective vision for a better future, but instead of responding to those needs, "we incarcerate them and pretend the problem has evaporated," she said.

"Imprisonment creates the illusion that we are addressing the problem," Davis told the crowd. "When in actuality, the problem is only being reproduced."

Davis said the struggle to free our communities from oppression goes beyond our borders — "if we are examining incarceration, justice and health, we cannot limit our field of vision to our immediate communities; it is especially important to move beyond the boundaries of the nation." She noted that more than 400,000 people are held in immigration facilities every year and that private prison corporations have a direct interest in the passage of anti-immigrant legislation.

"But people who are called illegal are showing us the way to democracy," she said. "No human being is illegal."

She encouraged attendees to think of themselves as global citizens, to see their struggles as intertwined with struggles happening in all corners of the world.

"Justice is never partial," Davis said. "Justice is always indivisible. Injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere. We need peace, equality, justice and health."

Davis continued during the Q&A with this beautiful closing quote: "When one learns how to engage in these struggles for larger causes...one sees one's light as inseparate from that process and it puts things in perspective."

Let's cap off this year's blog and Annual Meeting, which welcomed more than 12,500 attendees, with five charges from new APHA President Adewale Troutman. During his Closing Session speech, Troutman called on attendees to: bring five new APHA members to next year's Annual Meeting in Boston, where the theme will be "Think Global, Act Local: Best Practices Around the World;" stand up and take a leadership position in APHA; increase your personal knowledge of the APHA policy process; educate your local policymakers about APHA and its public health priorities; and lastly, stand for justice.

"Remember: The power of one is real," Troutman said.

See you next year in Boston for the 141st APHA Annual Meeting!

— K.K.

Above from top to bottom: Closing session speaker Angela Davis; the passing of the ceremonial gavel from immediate past APHA President Melvin Shipp (left) to new APHA President Adewale Troutman; and a pic of the Closing Session crowd. Photos courtesy Jim Ezell/EZ Event Photography

A little birdie told me so: Tweet of the day

To date, more than 8,500 tweets using the hastag #APHA12 have been posted and the hashtag trended more than once on Twitter! Thanks for helping us spread the public health word!

On this last day of the 140th APHA Annual Meeting, which also falls on the same day as a massive ticker-tape parade in celebration of World Series champions the San Francisco Giants, the tweet of the day goes out to @zoommiler, who tweeted: Thousands of screaming San Franciscans line the streets to celebrate another successful public health conference. #APHA12

Above, a bonus pic of San Francisco's beautiful views from the top of the Marriott Marquis. Thanks San Fran and Go Giants! Photo courtesy Susan Polan

Healthy fun, healthy youths

Young people will practice good health. If it’s fun, that is.

At a Wednesday morning session on "Application of Innovative Approaches to Health Communication," researchers found that dancing and speed dating were effectively used to improve nutrition and breast cancer awareness.

For example, the Best Bones Forever! initiative employed a dance video contest to address the unfortunate statistic that just 15 percent of girls ages 9-13 get the recommended amounts of calcium. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the initiative pushed the contest out through Facebook and promoted messages about calcium and vitamin D to “get girls engaging in physical activity and strengthening their bones,” said session presenter Elizabeth Osborn, who helped develop the video.

As a result, 90 girls from 17 states participated in the contest. In a follow-up survey given to the participants:

•    93 percent reported learning about which physical activities help build strong bones and 90 percent reported learning about which foods and drinks help build strong bones;

•    97 percent agreed or strongly agreed to eat more bone-strengthening foods; and

•    100 percent agreed that they would participate in another dance contest.

Over at the BOLD Initiative, organizers used a five-day summer camp for high schoolers to improve students' science skills, increase student awareness of cancer and introduce students to careers in health. The camp used breast cancer as the baseline topic and hosted a "speed-dating" event in which students discussed with each other their interests in the health professions.

Lead researcher and session presenter Laura Liang said that students overwhelmingly agreed with the following statement: “This program provided me with insight that will help me make future college plans and/or career goals.”

— D.G.

Above, the Best Bones Forever! Let's Dance Contest video.

We're famous!

This year's APHA Annual Meeting attracted a good bit of media attention, which means word about public health's good works and research is making the rounds! Below is a brief round-up of some of the news reports that made it out from San Francisco.

• My Health News Daily: "Teen Sex Rises with Smartphone Use"

• Healthline: "Veterans More Likely to Access Alcohol Treatment Programs Than Non-Veterans"

• UPI: "School flu shots reduce absences by half"

• U.S. News & World Report: "Eating more meals linked to less student overweight"

• BMJ Group Blogs: "Gabriel Scally: Obama cares, and so does public health in the USA"

• Examiner: "Teen pregnancy linked to pre-teen literacy levels"

• HealthCanal: "Survey shows parents support policies limiting unhealthy food marketing to children"

Above, APHA's Dr. Benjamin gets interviewed by reporters from New Tang Dynasty, a Chinese-language TV station. Photo courtesy David Fouse

Video is up!

Full video coverage is now available from this year's Opening Session! In addition to the above video of session speaker and outgoing APHA President Melvin Shipp, APHA's YouTube channel also has coverage of speakers Reed Tuckson, Gail Sheehy, Howard Koh and Nancy Pelosi.

May the force (of the flu shot) be with you

An APHA staffer gets in the Halloween mood with a Star Wars-inspired flu message. Stop by APHA's Get Ready booth at the Public Health Expo to meet her in person or visit flushot.healthmap.org to find a flu shot clinic near you.

Photo by Kim Krisberg

'Policy is an instrument of power'

Without public health, you wouldn’t have clean water to brush your teeth or wash that apple. You'd be much more susceptible to eating foods contaminated with salmonella or E. coli. It'd be hard to know just how much sugar, salt and calories you're consuming without those handy nutrition labels. Imagine being on the road without seat belts, speed limits and impaired driving laws. We don't have to tell readers of this blog that life would be very, very different without effective public health policies.

“Health is a right that needs to be protected and policy is an instrument of power [to protect those rights],” said Erica Di Ruggiero, associate director with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research-Institute of Population and Public Health and chair of the Canadian Public Health Association, during a Tuesday afternoon session on “Experiences & Challenges for Public Health Policy: Do We Make A Difference? The Views from WFPHA, CPHA and APHA.”

Public health associations are instrumental in illustrating why evidence-based public health policies can be so powerful in lifting the health of communities worldwide. To continue on the path toward health equity and make sure all people have access to good health opportunities as well as health care, we need to create awareness and understanding among politicians and the media, Di Ruggiero said. Don't be shy about sharing the compelling stories of public health's many successes. 

APHA Associate Executive Director Susan Polan said during the session that the biggest challenge for public health associations is “making public health a priority. (People) go through (their) days without realizing how public health impacts (their lives).”

Not surprisingly, when people are unaware of the importance of public health policies, there's less support and less government funding available for protecting “food safety, child nutrition, clean air, reproductive health, paid sick leave, and Medicaid and Medicare,” Polan said. The challenge today is to create “a common message and a language for people to understand,” she told attendees.

Director and head of the World Federation of Public Health Associations, Bettina Borisch, emphasized the importance of establishing a union of public health associations that mobilizes voices around the factors that contribute to health inequity. When big countries and smaller countries look to each other’s health care systems for lessons learned and best practices, it encourages other countries to follow suit, she said.

“It’s all about raising the bar so that everyone will have an equal opportunity,” said Di Ruggiero.

To learn more about WFPHA, click here. To find your state or regional public health association, click here.

— T.H.

Put down the salt shaker

Sometimes, a small change can make an enormous difference.

When Broome County in upstate New York reduced the sodium content in school lunches by 300 mg a day, the effort cut a ton of salt out of kids' diets in a two-year period. Yep, a ton (or 2,381 pounds of salt, presenter Yvonne Johnston of New York's Binghamton University said during yesterday’s “Sodium in School Meals and the Local Food Environment” session).

Grant money and California’s year-round availability of fresh produce helped lead the sodium-reduction effort at the Los Angeles Unified School District, which serves more than 650,000 meals a day at more than 800 sites. And 80 percent of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, said Patricia Cummings of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health's Division of Chronic Disease and Injury Prevention.

That school district has traditionally been on the forefront of healthy changes and has been working to adopt the Institute of Medicine’s recommendations on school meals. A preliminary evaluation of the sodium reduction piece found levels dropped in half for school breakfasts, from a whopping 1,064 mg in middle and high schools to 502 mg.

What helped? The school district’s food service team and board of education championed the policy and menu change, Cummings said. They also benefited from national momentum, including Centers for Disease Control and Prevention funding (such as a Community Transformation Grant) and Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! campaign. Something she strongly recommended for others undertaking sodium reduction: taste testing for parents and kids. The school district served more than 30,000 meals as part of its taste testing, which was “really informative in finding out what the students liked and what they didn’t like.”

That’s not to say such change was or will be easy, both Cummings and Johnston said. For one, cost is a problem. Broome County found the popular grilled cheese and tomato soup offering was 53 percent more expensive in its reduced-sodium version.

“We have this challenge of looking at all the nutrients and micro-nutrients essential to health and putting it on a plate with little cents signs and figuring out the cost,” Johnston said. But connecting local growers with schools to improve the supply of local fruits and vegetables is a start.

Los Angeles County, when replacing high-sodium pepperoni pizza with choices like hummus and quinoa, found some kids really miss their pizza. Both school districts are looking for the right recipe for a lower-sodium pizza with whole grain crust. One idea: add garbanzo bean flour to the crust for a fiber and protein boost.

Like many public health movements, though, the effort to improve nutrition in school meals is one that demands all our support.

“This work at the local level is actually starting to create a demand (for lower-sodium foods)," Cummings said. “I think it’s this whole momentum nationwide and at the local level that’s really going to make a difference in lowering sodium.”

— D.C.

And the winner is...

 

APHA honored pubic health's movers and shakers during last night's Public Health Awards Reception and Ceremony. To read more about APHA annual awards, click here.

Above from top to bottom, Beth Roemer (left) presents the Milton and Ruth Roemer Prize for Creative Public Health Work to Gretchen Sampson; APHA Awards Committee Chair Satya Verma (left) presents APHA's Award of Excellence to Jonathan Fielding, who accepted on behalf of Antronette Yancey; and Mariana Clair Arcaya speaks after accepting the Jay S. Drotman Memorial Award. Photos courtesy Jim Ezell/EZ Event Photography

Fracked?

The public health implications of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to harness natural gas are still not well understood, as research into the practice “is in its infancy,” said Roxanna Witter of the Colorado School of Public Health.

“This is really a very, very, very new literature,” Witter said yesterday during a session on “Fracking — Public Health Implications of Shale Gas Development.” “This is good for the time limitations of (this) presentation, but not for anything we’re attempting to do in scientific knowledge.”

Presenter Dallas Burtraw, a researcher with Resources for the Future, talked about acknowledging how the use of natural gas can be a good thing, especially considering that a gas-fired power plant would have much lower emissions than a coal-fired plant. But he also acknowledged a lack of any studies examining the long-term health effects of fracking.

He cited many possible benefits of fracking, such as cheaper electricity, cheaper home and commercial heating, and the possibility of reducing oil consumption in transportation. And one of the “big issues on the table,” even in the face of health concerns, is the economic revitalization of some areas, he said.

However, even the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is noting possible water contamination at fracking sites, such as in Pavillion, Wyo. In fact, the literature review Witter conducted found evidence of water and air contamination linked to fracking.

The National Resources Defense Council is so opposed to fracking, the organization has a “Don’t Get Fracked” page dedicated to helping people learn about the health dangers of fracking and how to stay informed. They put it this way: “Although drilling can create jobs and income, many fear the effects of drilling on their health, land and quality of life. Current laws need to be changed to catch up with the drilling explosion.”

Click here to read more about the public health effects of fracking in The Nation’s Health.

— D.C.