From the first half of the class, I have learned much about public health and how it works. There are so many different areas of public health that all relate to one goal which is to make society healthier and more livable. Before the class, I barely knew anything about the American health system and all the organizations that go into making Public Health work. I also did not know the top ten health achievements of Public Health. These achievements are vital and a part of our everyday lives yet not many people realize it. I think we take these contributions from Public Health for granted, we don't realize how important public health is in our life. As we learned in class, people focus on medical care more than public health because medicine is visible but public health is more abstract. But hopefully with the new health care reform, there will be more focus on public health and many more people will realize the importance of it.

I thought the lecture on injury prevention was very interesting because accidents, or unintentional injuries, were shown in a different light. It required you to think outside of the box and see the whole picture. It was true that education alone was not enough to stop majority of people to have safer behavior, but rather the social environment around the person needed to be changed. This is true in many other areas of Public Health as well. For example in lowering obesity rates, rather than telling someone to eat healthier, changing the foods available would work better. Another interesting area was public health and the law. It was interesting to see how gun companies used propaganda to sell their products. It showed how

many commercials give false information to sell. In order to stop these, public health makes sure people are not given false information in ads.

It was surprising to see the numbers of how many people are unhealthy in the US. Especially with obesity, many americans are overweight. This leads to the first and second causes of death in America. It was also shocking to see how much money is spent on healthcare every year. Compared to other countries, the US's health does not compare well, yet America spends the most money. It was also surprising to see how unintentional injuries hurt or kill a lot of people because people don't give much attention to accidents. Probably because people have been desensitized to accidents, not much thought is given to it. But in reality, many of these "accidents" can be prevented and potentially save a lot of lives. A lot of things that I did not give much thought to before because I thought it was normal actually turned out to be a bigger problem and something that could be changed for the better.

Looking back on my first blog, not much has changed but I am far more educated in how public health runs and affects our everyday lives. Now I see health is not just about medical care but actually encompasses a lot more. Now I am more interested in people's health towards their behavior and the environment more than the infectious diseases affecting people. I think preventive care is more important and beneficial than curing a sickness. I have learned a lot from this class so far and it has changed the way I see health care a lot.