Health Care Efficiency and Patient's Fiscal Health

The Dartmouth Atlas Project was a research operation that was conducted to compare the costs of health care at first within the immediate area and grew into a nationwide project. The findings were quite different from what researchers expected: rate of illness and healthcare cost had very little correlation in the country. The problem with health care cost was "over-service," health care physicians taking it upon themselves to perform operations and tests that the patient never really asked for basically because the means to do so are present.

Health care, in today's day and age, should be a right given to every citizen. In a country such as this, it's a but striking to think that people would be unable to receive prenatal care because they lack health insurance or people opt for trips to the hospital rather than a doctor's office because they cannot afford the latter. The argument against universal healthcare is short term cost, but when you look at it, the system as it is now is very flawed. People who get sick only receive attention when it's gotten to the point where they need to go to the hospital, and their serious treatment is provided to them free of charge.

Grand Junction, Colorado is the example of how health care ought to operate. One of the prevailing issues with providing health care is the physician refusal to give service to someone who isn't on the correct health care plan for his pocket book. This system mandates that al physicians provide service whether they be on Medicare or Medicaid. Another issue for most personal physicians is just how little time you spend with him or her after spending all that time at the clinic. In Seattle, there is a system in which the physicians work their schedules around the patients, and there is a much more personal doctor - patient relationship. The patients will sit and talk with the doctor for long periods of time to discuss all of their health issues and aren't being rushed out of the office. In Everett, Washington, the problem of "over-service" is directly tackled via a program that essentially surveys a patient's symptoms and conditons to decide whether or not a certain test is recommended or not. If it isn't, physicians usually don't go forward with the test, though they can overrule the decision if they see fit. The decrease in scans an services of the like because the program have decreased the cost of healthcare.

The issue with these styles of healthcare that make me think that it's unlikely for them to catch on is the whole aspect of caring about your patient's pocketbook just as much as your own. It may sound pessimistic, but I really doubt that people will care enough about that to make massive changes to their practices. Sure, your doctor may prescribe the generic over the name brand drug to save you a few dollars, but completely overhauling their style of treatment is a lot to ask for. The whole fact that there are doctors that would refuse to treat patients who do not have proper insurance is a testament to the fact the the empathy found in the physicians in places like Grand Junction is not a universal idea.

Vaccination: Fact vs. Fanaticism

The documentary details the conflict between two sides of a public health argument. One side is comprised of the supporters of vaccination during infancy and childhood because such measures have had a direct hand in the eradication of certain diseases. The other side hold the opponents of vaccination, purporting that the process has a direct hand in the increased incidence of developmental disorders, most notably autism. Physicians and the CDC acknowledge the inherent risk that comes along with the administration of vaccines but conclude that the benefits far outweigh he potential risks. The families that have been supposedly affected negatively by vaccinations of children spread their stories to the public via the internet and news media, fueling "public awareness."

I was very pro-vaccination before this video, and if nothing else, it only made me more so. The points made by the opposing side are not grounded in concrete fact at all, honestly based more on faulty correlation than anything else. The symptoms of autism generally develop around two years of age or so, when certain developmental milestones are missed. Because your child happens to develop these symptoms around the same time that they are administered a vaccine doesn't mean that one caused the other. Correlation does not equal causality. Another extremely flawed idea is the listing of ingredients in vaccines and demanding to know what the purpose behind their inclusion was. Ingredients are not put into medical products just for the sake of putting them in. They certainly have some sort of effect on the vaccine that aids in the delivering process. While the substances themselves may odd things to put into you body, one must account for their reactions with each other.

Vaccines should not be a thing that parents can just opt out of because a youtube video has suddenly enlightened them to the intricate workings of medicine. Getting vaccinated has a direct effect on those around you because you are not only putting yourself at risk for the contraction of a serious disease, but all those you interact with. Parents that have their children opt out of vaccinations rely solely on herd immunity. This is the idea that because a large amount of the surrounding population are immune to a particular disease, it's enough to safeguard yourself from said disease. If everyone has this idea however, the concept of herd immunity falls apart.

While there are a handful of reasons that children do not get vaccinated for things, only a handful are actually legitimate reasons to not do so. Children cannot get certain vaccines until certain ages, so during the time until then, they are relying completely on immunization of those around them to be safe. Some parents simply do not have the financial means to get their children immunized because they lack insurance for a regular health care physician. However the ones that are not acceptable are those that opt out because they find that the fictional link that has been created between autism and vaccinations to be far too great of a risk to give it to their children. One comment was that the mother would prefer measles to autism if she had the choice. Not only is the stance on the issue outrageously ignorant, it's also extremely selfish because it harms the children whose parents actually made the effort to safeguard their children's health from deadly diseases.

If it were in my power to try and increase vaccination rates, I would definitely try and raise credible awareness for vaccines that rebuked the extreme thoughts of a handful. Publication of just hard statistics that go in the face the critics would be an idea. For example, autism is generally on the rise in diagnoses because autism wasn't really a readily diagnosed disorder in the past not because it didn't exist but because it wasn't diagnosed as autism. Therefore to create a causation between the rise in autism cases and the rise in vaccination rates is extremely flawed, because one could essentially make that correlation with anything that had a positive rise along with autism. Another method to increase vaccination rates is to make more vaccinations mandatory for entrance into the public school system. This will essentially force parents to find the means to get their children vaccinated because they need to go to school.

Effects of "Passive Smoking" on Non-Smoking Japanese Women

The study presented the severity of effects of cigarette smoke on non-smoking wives of their smoking husbands. This was discovered in research that analyzed factors including cigarette smoking of husbands, alcohol consumption of husbands, and profession in how they affected the health of women, specifically the spouses of those husbands. There were no real correlations to be made with alcohol and health, but there was a noticeable correlation between smoking in husbands and the prevalence of lung cancer in non-smoker wives. Continued exposure to cigarette smoke from husband increased mortality from lung cancer by almost twofold according to the data. There was also a higher prevalence of lung cancer mortalities in more agricultural families vs. those in which the husband had an urban employment. This was attributed to the amount of time the more agriculturally based couples remained in contact with each other daily vs. the amount of time the more organized families operated.

What was probably the most interesting about this study was just how numerous the deaths due to lung cancer among women were according to figure 2 of the article. Only fifteen percent of Japan's female population smokes, and yet lung cancer is such an issue among this population. This could probably attest to the fact that second hand smoking from spouses is a real and dangerous issue, as it could be the missing link to explain why there were so many cases of women with lung cancer despite so few actual women who smoke.

This type of study design restricts potential bias because the habits of husbands and wives are acquired independently of each other. Also, there isn't solely a check comparison being made between lung cancer deaths and second hand smoking. There are several other health conditions that are recorded into the data as well to compare their specific rates of incidence in regards to a certain negatively stimulating factor. It not only proved that passive smoking was a problem, but a bigger problem compared to other common conditions. The sample size makes it possible to acquire a large amount of data and properly demonstrate the link between smoke and lung cancer that is being pushed forward.

The article, in my opinion, does a good job of creating the relationship of cause and effect between passive smoking and the prevalence of lung cancer among women. The data clearly depicts that prolonged exposure increased the numbers of Japanese women who died of lung cancer. The sample contained several thousands of people so it was a good representative of the Japanese populous. Perhaps the major flaw that does not really demonstrate the cause and effect relationship is the lack of any biological basis to link the cigarette smoke and the onset of lung cancer. The two are linked but it is never really physically described who. Understandably it may as well be common knowledge that cigarette's cause cancer. However, it would have definitely strengthened the report if there was a mention of the direct effects of the smoke on a person's body, even when not actually smoking it themselves.

Prevalence and Effects of Bing Drinking on High School Girls and Adult Women

According to the article published by the CDC, binge drinking is a real public health issue for American women, especially those in high school and early adulthood. Women that binge drank were likely to do so fairly often, generally 3 times a month, and each time would have about 5 drinks. Drunkenness was linked to many issues that made the seriousness of binge drinking among women very clear: a higher risk of unwanted pregnancy, late recognition of said pregnancy, consuming alcohol while pregnant because of late recognition, STIs, and even breast cancer. The data was acquired among high school students via school surveys and among other women via anonymous phone surveys.

I imagine that this is mainly a public health issue because of the prevalence of alcohol consumption among people in high school. Not only are they well below the drinking age, the quantity of alcohol they are consuming will have a long term effect on their bodies, liver damage for example, and may even have immediate effects like unwanted pregnancy. Older women, such as those in college, are almost expected to drink and despite the risk of drinking heavily, no one really bats an eye at the idea of someone drinking in their college years. This problem should also be put forward as an important public health issue simply because not many people really think it as such. When destructive substance use comes to mind, alcohol isn't really up there with cocaine, heroine, etc. Despite the fact that it isn't legal to drink before 21, it is extremely easy to do so and there are very few repercussions even in the event that you are caught. It's as if breaking the law has become normalized, making the severity of the issue difficult to properly capture.

Honestly, the data presented isn't much of a surprise, despite the fact that it isn't even the most reliable. It's not news to anyone that people drink and do so often. What may be slightly disconcerting is how high the numbers were even though they were mostly dishonest. It's very possible that some women lied in their responses to the telephone survey, mainly because of social implications that honesty answers would entail. No person wants to be thought of as a drunk who goes out every weekend, so if the survey is answered, one could assume the responses would be rather tame compared to the actual fact.

For college women, I believe the only way to curb drinking is to properly enforce the drinking age so alcohol is not as easily accessible to them. College students have the risks of alcohol drilled into them was soon as they arrive on campus the same way the dangers of sex are drilled into high schoolers. The risks are simply taken regardless. From personal interactions, people honestly joke about the long term damage to their livers as they drink, it's not anything that's news to them that they need to be enlightened of. Only denying the alcohol acquisition in the first place will be a useful deterrent. As for high school students, restricting how teens get the alcohol is a big part, but a large part also goes to the responsibility of the parents. A fourteen year old generally isn't walking into a liquor store and getting a bottle on their own. Parents need to be more aware of who their children associate with because they definitely have friends that are older than them that allow them to access the alcohol in the first place. The proposed methods of curbing alcohol consumption are no more than inconveniences for people that actually drink responsibly or have nothing to do with the issue, like raising the prices of alcohol and decreasing liquor store density in neighborhoods. These methods just hurt businesses as a whole because of poor decisions made by a few, and seems like a rather unfair method to combat binge drinking among women.