What are the public and private components of health ?

I have always been confronted by this question.

What are the public and private component of health? Is health something we can package like the computer world performs such activities like we see search engines do?  I chose to partly pursue this interrogation through a scholarly path.

Theoretically and by definition, "health" is the sound physical or mental condition (Merriam-Webster Dictionary). It is also the level of functional or metabolical efficiency of a living organism. It is the ability of an individual or community to adapt and self manage when facing physical, mental and social challenges ( see Wikipedia).WHO, health is: "a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. 

Health involves prevention, healing and care. Prevention can be all those activities one engages in to avoid getting ill, sick or not sound. Healing is making one sound or whole. Health care is a combination of efforts or initiatives to maintain or restore health. What one does as an individual must be done in such a way that it will promote soundness and wholeness for self and community. That is the nature of health. It is a highway that perennially connects as commune-members whether we like it or not. We, as individual, have the responsibility to keep our health sound. Our communities have the responsibility to keep our health sound. Awareness becomes important. This is both the public and private components of health that immediately come to my mind.

I am a volunteer with different teams here in San Francisco. I realize I have done much work around health. I came across a Livestrong article when I was running to fundraise money for a Cancer award. It listed 10 reasons for poor health. I read this article towards the end of 2014. The points are still fresh in my mind. One can access more details via Livestrong .com. The points are:

1. Smoking cigarettes

2. Poor feeding (I like to call it malnutrition)

3. Lack of sleep

4. Infectious diseases

5. Genetic disorders

6. Excessive Alcohol Consumption

7. Stress

8. Poor Oral Hygiene

9. Inactivity

10. Injuries

I hope this makes me an individual who is more responsible, I hope it enables me contribute towards sound health. I am sure I shall be a better community member and a ready person to help our communities have the responsibility to keep our health sound. I hope the 10 listed reasons for poor health will be something I can effectively help build interventions against.

A Positive Attitude begins by understanding one’s surroundings

My Professor told me a positive attitude is one of the greatest assets. She advised that I guard it carefully. Progress and success, whether in the classroom, at home, during recreation, on the job, or at home, are affected largely by it. One’s personality also reveals one’s readiness to assume the responsibilities involved in a job or social contacts. There are categories of responsibilities such as those that are: work-related, parenthood-related, filial-related, social-related, road-user-related, host-related, guest-related, professional-related, conduct-related and individual-related.

At the individual level, one has to examine one’s inner self critically to ensure that no negative tendencies intrude. A martyr complex, feelings of inferiority, making excuse for poor work or too little done, are examples of rationalizing deficiencies. These are negative traits. Other negative traits that drain one of vitality, rob efficiency, and dull one’s brainpower are: depression, tension, irritation, and intolerance. One’s attitude toward one’s fellow classmates or workers, toward supervision, and toward responsibility is as important as one’s attitude about oneself. Great motivators like John Maxwell Company or Key-note speakers talk about this.

Psychologists tell us that attitude is an enduring structure of beliefs that causes us to behave selectively toward physical objects, events, and behavior. Thus, we conclude that a positive mental concept of our ability and worth is extremely important in striving toward a goal. Conversely, it is impossible to progress satisfactorily in work or live a meaningful life if one is filled with negative perceptions.

Perception of yourself is a powerful force that

influences and guides you. If you perceive yourself as becoming a successful typist, you will see yourself as responsible for your progress and you will pinpoint what you do, or fail to do, that causes your success or failure. You will reinforce your attainments and correct your errors. You know that you guide your destiny in typing; and since you perceive that you are competent, you will invest your time, energy, and talents in full measure today so you may reap the benefits of a superior typing tomorrow.

One’s writing methods form one of the most important ways of conveying information. The forms one chooses to convey a message will be judged by the quality of the product, and one’s attitude will be displayed by the output.

Two of the most important aspects of a positive attitude are interest and desire. If one is interested, one will absorb more information from one’s surroundings, and one will become aware of opportunities that further one’s goal. Desire will make one more creative. These attitudes make one search for new opportunities and new approaches to implement ideas. A person with a positive attitude reflects a sense of accomplishment.

A Positive Performance At One's Work Place

The following is what one should do well in order to get a positive performance review. They are both soft and hard skills and these include: a balanced attitude, communicating in order to seek clarification and further direction, adaptability,   team work,  punctuality,  following instructions, having the right knowledge and set of skills and willingness to learn new things. If one were to find work in a different field from which they trained in, one should have an open mind to go through a phase of training or probation. Most jobs deal with people. People to people skills in one trade can be transferred to another. For example, an engineer can switch jobs and work well in a social services job such as linking people to housing. The former engineer turned social worker can communicate with clients and be able to inform them of requirements needed to get a house. The engineer can even talk about the advantages of housing or shelter. This adaptability or flexibility has helped improve on numbers getting into the entrepreneurship fields as well.

A balanced attitude has always been something that many mentors would advise. A balanced attitude is the disposition one has to follow the routine, daily and rigid activities of the job. It is also the ability to take instructions without feeling debased. The unspoken word, the treatment one gives to others, as well as showing desire and interest in what one does. This can motivate other workers as well. There are so many advantages arising from a balanced attitude e.g., easily making friends, so many people develop a genuine interest in you, and genuine interest that goes both ways.

Having the right knowledge and set of skills continues to present one with the ability to finish tasks on time. At the work place, this continues to be a very important asset. However, without a balanced attitude and transferability of skills it may be as useless as salt that has lost its saltiness.

STEP TWO: NEGATIVE THINGS AT THE WORK PLACE

These things could adversely affect one’s review processes and they include a lack of balanced attitude,  inability to communicate, lack of adaptability,  not engaging in efforts to build team spirit, not being punctual, not following instructions, lack of right knowledge and set of skills to do the job, and lack of desire to learn new things.

The three negative things that people do at work are: not following instructions, late coming, and lack of desire to learn new things. Instructions are the routinely required bricks of work. They may be in the form of daily activities or the very job descriptions. When instructions are not followed, the outcomes may be different and not related to the kind of results one is desires. The second negative thing is late coming and it affects the way one prepares for work. It may mean not meeting deadlines. Disinterestedness is a negative thing that one should avoid. It makes one have a negative disposition about work, staff and clients. It affects morale and in the end, one may end up losing the job.

CONCLUSION

A positive performance will be achieved if one followed step 1 and avoided what has been highlighted in step 2.

When a name simply put may serve to shame and have a likelihood to stoke discrimination & Stigma; lessons informing Public health and HIV Social Justice Policies

A woman, hair-stylist, skilled and experienced after doing this kind of work for many years both in Africa and USA, found herself being avoided by friends in Oakland, CA in 2014. From February to September her business on one of the most frequented areas in a corner next to Oakland Museum, witnessed a boycott. She was transformed by the community into a label. “Ebola!” This became her name. The name had its accompanying attributes in form of societal reward or punishment. There seemed to be a universal consensus among many to punish Africans. Other Africans also faced degrees of stigmatization. In the case of Jessica, her hair grooming enterprise became an instant loss. From the darling of hairdressing in Oakland to a social outcast. She came from Senegal. She had come to live in USA where she is a mother and a law abiding citizen. Few took time to understand what Ebola was. Mostly negative perspectives, prejudices and biases were the order of the day until there was effort to establish dialogue around this issue. 

A man in his late 30’s  had worked as a homecare provider for 1 year at a Senior Living apartment in a secluded corner in San Francisco, CA. He enjoyed his work, gave the right measure of unconditional regard towards his charges and followed instructions set by his bosses. In August 2014, he was shocked when he was told by one of the charges he was about to serve not to touch anything because “Africans bring Ebola to USA. It is all over T.V.” 

In Public Health, socially correct language needs to be used especially where there is likely to be confusion. Take for example: one of the forms of transmission of HIV is from “mother-to-child.” It is true, this happens but it is socially correct to say: “Perinatal Transmission.” It is an objective approach that takes blame away from a subjective situation motherhood. It gives perspective to mothership as acollective role: at the zygote level, birthing, nursing, caring and loving in their true light. It also shows clearly the point when there is likely to be vulnerability to infections so good care measures can be taken. The name “Perinatal Transmission” falls well under the characteristics that are used by the international classification of Diseases: defining the infection or disease; understanding causes; plotting rate of infections (morbidity); recording rate of deaths (mortality) and; rate of disability.

Motherhood has the following attributes:  key facilitator in the exchange of eggs during fertilization; implantation; gestation which is normally carried to term; birthing; bonding; caring; role training and supportiveness. Motherhood should not be made out to appear dangerous by some statements that on the surface may be thought to be harmless. Scientific evidence shows that the foetus in the womb from gestation to full term is not exposed to HIV but this vulnerability to HIV infection is during the 'passage' in the birth canal. In other words during delivery. That is why all measures are done to protect both the mother (who may be positive and child, by starting ART in the period before actual child birth). As I end this short article, I want to share with you what I learnt from the International Journal of Cardiology Volume 8, issue 3, July 1985. In it the authors are discouraging the eponymous trend and give their reasons. Why do we have to correct some of the names, especially in Scientific Nomenclature, that were passed down to us? Why have we all of a sudden grown a discontent with some names? Why don't we keep Fallopian Tubes (that highway that brings the egg in females from one place to another) and instead use Uterine Tube? There are reasons given such as: helping health service providers understand illnesses and reducing a fear/ cringe factor among sufferers. 

The latter is one of the reasons why I personally want the term “Perinatal Transmission” and not “Mother-to-Child Transmission.”

Good Public Health Habits to cultivate

We were discussing the impact of infections on societies from time immemorial. We listed the: Aztec empire; empires in Africa; Han empire; and Roman empire and realized small pox here or various infestations there led to the fall of these empires that great armies had helped put up. I was moved to write this blog after the friend said: “Health affects security and defense. If one wants to measure the value of health, let them read about the effects of the bubonic plague on the progress of the World Wars or the effects of biological warfare terrorism/ scare on public peace and order.” It got me thinking. The moral I gathered from this tete-a-tete was that we do not need to wait for  infections or diseases to ravage us. We do not have to wait for Ebola or Malaria or Cholera to cross the veil. So, there must be what I call “good habits.” It is these good habits that I want to write about in lay terms. The affordable and appropriate individual practices. Before I proceed to write about the good habits, I want to define four words: habit, health and the public

 A habit or practice is one’s way of doing things as part of contributing to or getting something out of a society. It is one’s own attitude; it manifests as interest or desire; it is the fabric maintaining relationships; it is also the interaction and treatment one gives to others. A habit follows a certain pattern. The pattern is dictated by a feeling of life, energy, accomplishment, self esteem and drive. This is what I shall call health for the purpose of this blog. Health is in turn affected by agency, place, space and time. This is what I shall call public. One has to cultivate habits that enjoin the public to continue upholding health. We see such results at human-to human level manifested as productivity, being dependable and results oriented. But, what are those habits? Before these habits become an every day application, there are underlying skills such as: a readiness to work with communities; one has to have the intelligence to analyze needs; one has to be a problem-solver; one has to have the readiness to listen to others; one has to have the readiness to provide guidance that brings about change or addresses needs; one has to be able to communicate with others as well as self. The good habits benefit self and others. By others we may mean: family members, community members, house-mates, congregants, school-mates, crew-mates or any situation that brings humans or other organisms together. This interrelationship is underscored by complexities and resources (logistics and technologies). In order to have sustainable public health the way we manipulate the resources has to be in such a way that we are able to promote accessibility and use. This in turn promotes and is supposed to uphold health at individual and community level (public). Examples of the resources or agency include:  the people; the environment; clean water supply systems, infrastructure and various objects we use to improve or maintain a quality long life for ourselves and earth.

There is a link between practices, individual, public, resources, vigilance (or lack thereof), continued awareness, continued reporting of what needs to be addressed and a motivation to uphold health. The good habits in form of a readiness to work with communities; intelligence to analyze needs; problem-solving skills; readiness to listen to others; readiness to provide guidance that brings about change or addresses needs; ability to communicate with others as well as self provides the critical readiness by all to engage in activities that promote Public Health. Public Health calls for community mobilization, community involvement and community accountability.

Introduced to good old farmer’s Spicy and syrupy Rural Texan Cooking

 I am a new person who recently came to stay in the United States of America. I come from Uganda and there, food is so central to our socialization, reward, recognition and care. It is not uncommon for a child who misbehaves to be warned he or she may miss a meal or two. Many a children have been brought back into line by just that threat. I was not spared this as well! Fast forward, I came to USA and had the opportunity to live with Selwyn Jones from Texas (born and bred, he would add every time we talked about Texas and particularly Houston of 1930s/1940s). Selwyn Jones, told me about how he grew up in their home and very large farm. He shared with me how they would wake up earlier and sleep late. He told me he enjoyed the different chores of the farm. He loved the animals mostly and he would spend most of his time with the horses, cattle, pigs (he called them hogs), geese and chicken. But most of all he loved the heavy meals. He told me that dinner in Texas was a meal taken at noon! Food and eating began the discussions on meals, feeding and food preparation between his culture and my culture.

Selwyn liked opera, flower arranging, drama, music, debating, visiting the museums and eating out. He came to live in San Francisco after World War II. He taught Calligraphy and Art at Berkeley University and exhibited his works in different cities of the World. He was a very good cook too. He enjoyed mixed vegetable and fruit salads. With time I was able to tell which vegetables, fruits and spices were best for the sauces/ soups I prepared. I was thinking back to the kind of cooking we did in Africa. Among the many types of preparations, Selwyn liked the “Ganda” sauce broth (he called it the casserole), especially when I put sweet corn in it. I would prepare a stock of this and it would last for a week or two. I made sure I had enough to last us that time. I would also invite friends over, who liked to sample African foods, and prepare it for them.

I always wonder why this particular broth is the darling of many. I always look forward to the involved preparation that makes it enjoyable. It is mostly vegetable or fruits that make up the bulk of the food. This makes it a universal food. See the recipe below. You too can try at home.

GANDA SAUCE BROTH (Chicken or Beef))

Make five (5) servings

3 cups of water                                                

4 tablespoons butter or margarine

¼-teaspoon sea-salt

2 fingers of plantain

½ pound peanuts/ Ground-nuts

½ Pinto beans

¼-pound Lettuce or Cucumber

¼-pound Broccoli

¼ fish

¼ chicken or beef (if chicken, it gets to be the chicken broth!)

¼ gram of each of these spices: Basil, thyme, ginger, vanilla, sweet roots, Musizi...

1 pound of red onions

¼ pound of green leaf onions

1 pound of tomatoes

½ pound of Irish potatoes/Sweet potatoes

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit!

Pill banana plantain

Pill the potatoes

Cut the onions and pound them to make dough

Cut the leafy onions

Cut the lettuce or cucumber

Cut the tomatoes

Crush the peanuts into smaller pieces

Get the Soaked beans after one day soaking (previous day activity!)

Add the potatoes in the heating 2 cups of water in a large saucepan, cook until soft. Cook the plantain until it is ready and then take both off the stove. Pound the potatoes and add one tablespoon of butter. Put in oven for 30 minutes. After, get it out and put the rings of plantain on top of the potatoes. Return in oven for 10 minutes. Take them out and let them cool.

In a frying pan, put the remaining butter and allow it to heat up to 200 degrees F. Add onions and fry them, add tomatoes, add fish, chicken or beef (cut into very small pieces), fry for 30 minutes and add salt. Let is cook for 30 minutes and add spices as well as 1 cup of water now. Add the beans and peanuts. Let them cook for 40 minutes. Cover this. It is now called stock. Do not stir! Reduce the heat to 60 degrees F. Let it cook for 20 minutes. Around this time, the water has decreased. Serve in next few minutes when ready.

Good Habits to cultivate when Communicating with your Boss by Thomas Rogers Muyunga Mukasa

Before I proceed to write about the good habits around communicating with one’s boss, I want to define four words: habit, communicating, boss and the work-place

 A habit is one’s way of doing things as part of contributing to or getting something out of a society. It is one’s own attitude; it manifests in the way one maintains relationships; it is also the interaction and treatment one gives to others.  A habit follows a certain pattern. The pattern is dictated by a place and time. In our case, it is the work place. One has to cultivate work place habits geared at being productive, dependable and results oriented.

Communicating is the use of verbal, written, bodily and non verbal means to convey a given meaning or reaction towards what has stimulated one to do a certain action. In our case, the work place related activities. These may include, but not limited to, the way one interacts with other work mates as well as other aspects that are in a way related to what one does.

 There are many ways one can make work enjoyable. Some of the ways are: arriving at work on time; giving oneself time to make preparation at one’s desk (if there is one); check for voice mail messages; check to see if there is a scheduled in-house meeting to attend; check in on other staff members; and get started with your work. Take note that whatever one is engaged in is actually conveying a message to others. Whatever one does at the work place may be verbal or practical. It has a message it conveys.

A boss is someone reports to; one to consult about any matter concerning the direction of the job. This is the person who represents the work place vision, mission and culture. As much as possible have an open and clear path between you and the boss. One good habit is to find time to talk with the boss. A greeting/salutation is one way to start that off. A boss is a human being too. Tell the boss about an experience on the road as you came to work. Develop a schedule for a full month. Take time to consult your boss on what to add to or take out from your work schedule. This is will help you understand the work place objectives while at the same time it will be an opportunity for the boss to review and improve on your cultural understanding of this particular work place.

The input areas for one to productively communicate with one’s boss are: understanding and improving on one’s specific work place related habits; communicating verbally and non-verbally; looking at work as one’s extension of productivity and joyfulness; and sharing experiences with one’s boss. This will give one an opportunity to be noticed.