Writing Center Visits

Final Paper

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0cnULTylW4SUXlQZlpWMmRVNVE/view?usp=sharing

Introduction

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0cnULTylW4SRVlDSlROZEUycm8/view?usp=sharing

Ch. 7

Ch. 6

Ch. 5

Conclusion

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0cnULTylW4Sc0F0cDBEOEdGMUE/view?usp=sharing

Discussion Section

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0cnULTylW4SRm9zVUlzQ2ptWUE/view?usp=sharing

Chapter 4 Annotation

The fourth chapter to Berridges Public Health: A Short Introduction focuses on the 1800’s to the 1900’s. This time in history saw a huge explosion in population, a jump in the amount of people living in urban areas, and a jump in the industrialization of the world. The chapter starts off by noting the fact that life expectancy did not change throughout the 1800’s. They attribute this to the decreased living conditions in the newly urbanized areas. These conditions stayed relatively the same, until the 1900’s, where there were public health efforts to clean up the cities.

There was a huge jump in the field of public health in the 19^th century as a direct effort to address the issues that came with the urbanization and industrialization of the world. These came with a plethora of issues, such as the spread of cholera. This is accepted to be the driving force behind the 19^th century movement. Cholera has a high mortality rate, and is very easy to spread in close quarters, so this was a prime place for spreading. Initially, public health officials would quarantine infected people, and inspect the goods being brought through ports. Although, this was found to be ineffective, and it still killed many of the lower class individuals.

The cholera epidemics led to some changes in public health. This was mostly due to the overwhelming evidence that poor people got sick, and were living in far harsher conditions than anyone else. Edwin Chadwick was very key in this movement, and he wrote reports on the sanitary conditions of the poor. Edwin Chadwick did a study in which he compiled surveys from around 2,000 people, which then proved the likeliness of death went hand in hand with social class. This led him to create a system of waste disposal in an effort to stop the spread of disease.

It was during this time that vaccines were created. They were created from the observation that people who had been infected with cowpox could not be infected with smallpox. After proving that vaccinations were possible, it soon became one of the most important things to happen in the field of public health. In the 1840s, vaccination for smallpox was mandatory in children, and it led to a drop in the deaths due to smallpox.

At the end of this chapter, Berridge goes through public health at the turn of the century. The focus changed from improving the environment, to the individual.  The focus also changed from infectious diseases, to something known as the racial purge. AKA tuberculosis, alcoholism, and venereal diseases.

This chapter is very useful, as there was a lot of information in it. The ideas of this time period are still very well in use today, and some of the biggest steps in public health were accomplished throughout the years in this chapter. The cleaning of the cities was huge, along with the development of vaccines, and the germ theory. All of these are still in use in the modern times.  

Chapter 3 Annotation

In chapter three of Berridge’s Public Health: A Very Short Introduction, she starts off by saying that without understanding where public health started, we will not be able to understand it in the current day. Throughout the very early days of public health, around 4000 years ago, we can see traces of an organized effort to optimize the health of the people. This chapter explains that the biggest area for public health during these very early years was around building and the disposal of wastes through plumbing. Both of these ancient efforts are still a public health effort today.

This chapter then moved onto the Greeks, who permanently shifted the efforts of public health. Hippocrates changed the ideals of people, and began the shift of the ideas of disease from an idea that disease was a punishment of the gods, to the idea that things and peoples routines could cause disease. Hippocrates and his works made medicine a holistic medicine, and even though he thought that the health was in the balance of the four humors, it was still a large step in the medical field.

In the middle ages, malnutrition and disease were the leading causes of death, and this was not to change. Berridge explains that there was a huge boom in the Bubonic plague, which changed the field of public health drastically. The worst years for the Bubonic plague were from the 13^th to 14^th century.  The suffering of the people in these times was great, and it came to public health to try to stem the flow. Berridge explained that one of the key things to come out of this time was the technique of quarantine. In Italy, they would quarantine ships traveling from areas with a high amount of the plague in order to stop the spread through Italy’s ports. Leprosy was uncommon throughout the ancient times, but with the population boom, it began to become more prevalent. People who had leprosy were also subject to quarantine in the medieval times. They were often ignored or excommunicated by the community, for fear of also catching the disease.

One thing that could be very useful in this chapter would be the looking at life expectancy. It was very interesting to see the changes, and it was interesting to see that it may have been somewhat skewed due to the amount of babies that died in or shortly after birth. It could also be useful to know the history of quarantines, and the early history of public health. 

Methods Section

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0cnULTylW4SbmtSQU5PNVlNelU/view?usp=sharing

CH 2 Annotations

In chapter two, Berridge explains some of the challenges within the field of public health. Specifically, she spends the chapter looking at the issues faced at the local and national levels in the United Kingdom. In 2014, a survey was completed in order to see some of the issues that public health officials thought should be priority. Some of the issues that they thought were important are pricing of alcohol, tobacco packaging, reducing the amount of personal transport, minimum wage, minimum physical activity, cutting sugar in foods, stopping the marketing of high fat and sugar foods to children, installing health education into the school system. These are issues that are not only a priority in the UK, but also throughout the globe.

One of the biggest topics in public health is the topic of behavior modification. She explains that this is what public health officials do in order to nudge people into healthier habits. Berridge says that smoking is one of the best examples of behavior modification. The biggest issue with smoking was to denormalize it. The first big step was to pass the legislation of no smoking zones. Another way of denormalizing it was to create plain packaging.

Berridge also goes over the tactics that public health officials use in order to create healthier lives. The easiest and largest example of this is vaccinations. Nearly all children in the UK are immunized against tetanus, diphtheria, whooping cough, meningitis, MMR, and most other infectious diseases. Along with this, vaccinations have started to be used for cervical cancer since 2008 in teenage girls, and since its beginning has become routine.

Another tactic used by public health officials is the screenings of the population. Screenings came into the field when tuberculosis was widespread. The United Kingdom started using screenings in 1948. The screenings would take place in either a hospital setting or in a general surgeon’s office.

In the UK, the Health and Social Care Act reorganized the health systems, and gave local authorities health related duties to achieve. This act also mandated that they appoint a local director of public health. This move began the shift from the health services region where public health had been, into the field of politics. A move that brought public health back around to its roots.

One of these biggest issues in the field of public health right now, and over the history of the fields, is looking at the health inequalities that lower socioeconomic status people face. It is much more difficult to achieve and maintain a high health status if one is in the lower socioeconomic status. In London, the closure you lived to their train system, the lower your general life expectancy. Through the use of figures, maps, and graphs it was very easy to see the difference in life expectancies throughout the different socioeconomic statuses. 

CH.1 Annotations

In chapter one, the author Virginia Berridge went into detail on what public health exactly is, and some of the origins that it has. This is quite the difficult thing to do, as public health wraps itself around a wide variety of issues throughout history and the current day. Even though public health is an ever changing field the general goal has stayed the same, to promote the health of the people. It can do this either at the local level, state level, national level, or even the international level.  

She goes over the changing definitions that public health has so commonly had. In 1988 Donald Acheson’s idea of public health was along the lines of preventing disease to elongate the lives of the citizens by using society to create change. In 2004, Derek Wanless added the idea of informing the public on their choices. In only 16 years, the definition of public health changed massively, showing how fluid the field of public health is.

Along with this, chapter one goes over the three domains of public health. The first of these is health improvement. Health improvement is the act of trying to change the determinants of health through promoting healthy lifestyles and environments. The second section of public health is health protection. This section tries to protect people. It can do this through the use of vaccines, injury preventions, screenings, and many more. The third and last section of public health is health service improvement. This section aims to provide services to all of the population, improve the services that the population has, and make sure that all services are readily available to the population.

Some of the critiques about public health are also made clear in this chapter. One of these critiques is quite simply that the definition of public health is so very broad, and what it should be doing is always under debate. Some say that because the definition of public heath is so broad, people can sometimes make large stretches to get personal gain.  Another issue surrounding public health is the question on how it should take on health issues. Should it focus on easier more technical fixes, or should it try to make much larger and more difficult social changes?  The larger social change requires a foot in politics, which some people don’t think public health should be in. Social change also requires massive social shifts, and as such is much harder to accomplish without push back. The idea of a nanny state is when public health oversteps its borders into personal freedoms, even though they may be causing a benefit to the health of the population. 

Results Section

Here is the results section of my paper!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0cnULTylW4SWWFRbHdNTDRMakE/view?usp=sharing

Synthesis Proposal

Here is the link to my Synthesis Proposal!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0cnULTylW4SWWdmR1dGSUFleVk/view?usp=sharing

Synthesis Matrix 6-10

The link below on my first synthesis matrix post is updated and should have the rest of my synthesis matrix updated!

Synthesis Matrix

Here is the link to my in class work of the synthesis matrix.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0cnULTylW4SSzVZcW5rUmdESVE/view?usp=sharing

Research Journal 3

1) Jacquemin, B., Siroux, V., Sanchez, M., Carsin, A.-E., Schikowski, T., Adam, M., … Kauffmann, F. (2015). Ambient Air Pollution and Adult Asthma Incidence in Six European Cohorts (ESCAPE). Environmental Health Perspectives, 123(6), 613–621. http://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.1408206

This article is a cohort method. It is related to my topic because it is looking at the effects of how air pollution in the younger years impact the prevalence of asthma in the adult years of life.Along with this, it also looks at the effects of short term exposure to air pollution simultaneously. This allows this study to look at both points of view, and works well in my results section due to this. It would fit well with my results especially with the short term results section, but the long term effects had some interesting results. They could prove that there was a positive relation between pollution and asthma, but they could not prove that it was significant enough to say it is correlated.

2) Zmirou, D., Gauvin, S., Pin, I., Momas, I., Sahraoui, F., Just, J., … Labbe, A. (2004). Traffic related air pollution and incidence of childhood asthma: results of the Vesta case-control study. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 58(1), 18–23. http://doi.org/10.1136/jech.58.1.18

This article is a review of a cohort study. It is related to my topic because it is looking at the effects of air pollution and its effects on asthma in later life. It looks at this in five different areas of France. It also takes into account the amount of other environmental factors, such as tobacco smoke and allergies, which could have skewed the results otherwise. Along with this, it is looking at children ages 4 to 14. One thing that I found interesting about this article was that they factored their entire life exposure, including an assessed exposure amount to the participants for the years 0-3. 

3)Nandasena, S., Wickremasinghe, A. R., & Sathiakumar, N. (2012). Respiratory health status of children from two different air pollution exposure settings of Sri Lanka: A cross-sectional study. American Journal Of Industrial Medicine, 55(12), 1137-1145. doi:10.1002/ajim.22020

This article is a cohort study. The article is related to my topic because it is about the respiratory heath of children. They are looking at whether or not the effects of air pollution are different in an urban setting than in a non urban setting. They are also looking at the effects on children. One thing that I found somewhat interesting about this article was that there was a negligible difference between the two groups of children, and this is attributable to a few key factors. 

4)

Caroline Barakat-Haddad PhD

, Susan J. Elliott PhD

 and David Pengelly PhD

Annals of Epidemiology, 2012-04-01, Volume 22, Issue 4, Pages 239-249, Copyright © 2012

This is a cohort study. This article is related to my topic because it is looking at the effects of long term air pollution on the lungs. They are looking to see if long term exposure will result in a higher likeliness to having asthma later in life. They are using the participants from a study done in the 80's, and they are using the data from that study to find the correllation to the prevalence of asthma. The thing that I found interesting about this article was that they are using data from such an old study. 

5) Mengersen, K., Morawska, L., Wang, H., Murphy, N., Tayphasavanh, F., Darasavong, K., & Holmes, N. S. (2011). Association between indoor air pollution measurements and respiratory health in women and children in Lao PDR. Indoor Air, 21(1), 25-35. doi:10.1111/j.1600-0668.2010.00679.x

This is a Cohort study. This article is related to my topic because it is looking at the effects on indoor air pollution on future respiratory health problems. This article looks at the indoor air pollution in 3rd world countries, and the problems that these people have later in life due to the smoke, and other indoor pollutants. I could use this in my results section to go over the effects of indoor pollution due to the fact that most of my other studies focus on outdoor pollutants like cars and factories. One thing that I found interesting in this article is that it looked at indoor, as none of my other articles did this.

In Class Work 2/6 and 2/8

1.             How do you reference this journal in an APA work cited?

Barraza-Villarreal, A., Sunyer, J., Hernandez-Cadena, L., Escamilla-Nuñez, M. C., Sienra-Monge, J. J., Ramírez-Aguilar, M., … Romieu, I. (2008). Air Pollution, Airway Inflammation, and Lung Function in a Cohort Study of Mexico City Schoolchildren. Environmental Health Perspectives, 116(6), 832–838. http://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.10926

2.     what method is being used?

Cohort

3.     How do the authors use the method? What do they use it for? What specifically does the method enable them to do? Why did they choose this method rather than another? What was it about this research agenda/topic that led them to choose this particular method? Answer a handful of these. They all get at similar thing. But I want blocks of texts.

The authors use the cohort method in order to prove. They are able to use it to prove an association and or causation between the inflammation of the airways and lung function to the amount of pollution in Mexico City. They chose this method so that they could directly say that the pollutant particle PM2.5 had a direct association to the overall lung function and amount of airway inflammation in the schoolchildren of Mexico City.

4.     What is the conclusion of the study? And how did the method enable them to reach that particular conclusion?

The conclusion of this study was that the children had a very distinct reaction to the particle PM2.5. Both the children with and without asthma had reactions, and has higher risk of respiratory infections. Even though both had reactions to PM2.5, the children with asthma had more, and more severe reactions.

5.     The interesting thing about this article is that the specific article PM2.5 had a direct effect to the symptoms of asthma.

1.     How do you reference this journal in an APA work cited?

Dick S, Doust E, Cowie H, et al Associations between environmental exposures and asthma control and exacerbations in young children: a systematic review

BMJ Open 2014;4:e003827. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2013-003827

2.     What method is being used?

This is a systematic review.

3.     How do the authors use the method? What do they use it for? What specifically does the method enable them to do? Why did they choose this method rather than another? What was it about this research agenda/topic that led them to choose this particular method? Answer a handful of these. They all get at similar thing. But I want blocks of texts.

They use the review in order to review multiple articles that are looking at the association between any of the environmental pollutants and asthma symptoms in children under the age of 9. They chose this method in order to look at multiple articles, and get a general consensus on the literature on the topic. They were lead to this method because it is the only way to review multiple pieces of literature, and they didn’t have the ability/possible desire to complete their own actual research. Instead they wanted to get the general consensus on what the conclusions of similar studies are.

4.     What is the conclusion of the study? And how did the method enable them to reach that particular conclusion?

They found that the environmental pollutants induced the symptoms of asthma. Their method enabled them to find this consensus by looking at multiple studies on the same general topic.

5.     The interesting thing that I found in this article was that the resounding opinion of the studies was that emissions had a direct correlation to the symptoms of asthma.

1.     How do you reference this journal in an APA work cited?

Zmirou, D., Gauvin, S., Pin, I., Momas, I., Sahraoui, F., Just, J., … Labbe, A. (2004). Traffic related air pollution and incidence of childhood asthma: results of the Vesta case-control study. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 58(1), 18–23. http://doi.org/10.1136/jech.58.1.18

2.     What method is being used?

This is a cross sectional study.

3.     How do the authors use the method? What do they use it for? What specifically does the method enable them to do? Why did they choose this method rather than another? What was it about this research agenda/topic that led them to choose this particular method? Answer a handful of these. They all get at similar thing. But I want blocks of texts.

The authors use this method to collect data on a large population over a section of time, it is also over a longer period of time than other methods. They chose this method to get a diverse sample group. It also allows them to look at the effects of traffic emissions on the lungs, specifically on the occurrence of asthma. This method allows them to look at a much larger population than say a cohort study, so the conclusion can be more reliable.

4.     What is the conclusion of the study? And how did the method enable them to reach that particular conclusion?

The study concludes that the effects of traffic pollution probably had an effect on the rise of prevalence of asthma in the upcoming generation. They were able to get this through looking at a couple hundred people, and cross referencing the amount of ambient traffic pollution in their daily lives.

5.     The thing that I found interesting was that it correlated the traffic emissions directly to the rise in asthma throughout the new generation of kids.

1.     How do you reference this journal in an APA work cited?

Nandasena, S., Wickremasinghe, A. R., & Sathiakumar, N. (2012). Respiratory health status of children from two different air pollution exposure settings of Sri Lanka: A cross-sectional study. American Journal Of Industrial Medicine, 55(12), 1137-1145. doi:10.1002/ajim.22020

2.     What method is being used?

This is a cross sectional study.

3.     How do the authors use the method? What do they use it for? What specifically does the method enable them to do? Why did they choose this method rather than another? What was it about this research agenda/topic that led them to choose this particular method? Answer a handful of these. They all get at similar thing. But I want blocks of texts.

.The authors use this method in order to look at a large amount of people over a longer period of time. It can give them more accurate results, and it gives them results from a long period of time, unlike some studies which look at short bursts of time. They chose this method because they are looking for a wide variety of backgrounds and over a long period of time. They were looking at multiple areas in India, both have a variety of different emissions, so a large variety of people would give the best overall results.

4.     What is the conclusion of the study? And how did the method enable them to reach that particular conclusion?

They concluded that both indoor and outdoor air pollution in both metropolitan and non metropolitan areas has an effect on symptoms of asthma. They got this conclusion from the wide population that the researchers decided on.

5.     The thing that I found interesting was that both groups of kids, metropolitan and non metropolitan had asthmatic issues.

1.     How do you reference this journal in an APA work cited?

Caroline Barakat-Haddad PhD, Susan J. Elliott PhD and David Pengelly PhD

Annals of Epidemiology, 2012-04-01, Volume 22, Issue 4, Pages 239-249, Copyright © 2012

2.     What method is being used?

This is a questionnaire

3.     How do the authors use the method? What do they use it for? What specifically does the method enable them to do? Why did they choose this method rather than another? What was it about this research agenda/topic that led them to choose this particular method? Answer a handful of these. They all get at similar thing. But I want blocks of texts.

The authors of this article use this method because the participants already had a study done on them during the 1970s, so they did this as a follow up to the original study. They used this follow up to see if the effects seen in the original study stuck around and were still prevalent. They also used this method to see if the effects of their childhood exposure have possibly got worse.

4.     What is the conclusion of the study? And how did the method enable them to reach that particular conclusion?

The conclusion of the study is that there was around a 30% correlation to the prevalence of adult respiratory issues. They were able to get this by asking the participants their experiences throughout their adulthood.

The thing that I found interesting was that there was a large portion of the sample that had persistent issues with their respiratory function. 

Research Journal 2

What is your topic? Or what are your key words thus far?

My topic is about respiratory health in areas with high amounts of air pollution and the short and long term effects.

What is your research question? Have you decided to change it at all? And, if you have, how do I know that the way in which this question is formulated is appropriate to conduct a literature review with a systematic approach? 

My question is: What effect does living in an area with a high concentration of air pollutants have on the function of the respiratory system. 

And what are the definitions on which it depends?

My question depends on multiple key terms.

Air Pollution: the presence in or introduction into the air of a substance which has harmful or poisonous effects.

Respiratory Health: The current health of the entire respiratory system, including lungs, respiratory tract, bronchi, etc. 

Asthmatic: A person who is suffering from asthma.

Cohort: A type of medical research used to investigate the causes of disease, establishing links between risk factors and health outcomes.

What is your hierarchy of evidence? And how do I know you going about finding the most appropriate evidence/method for your research question?

Because of the fact that my project is focused entirely on the medical causes and effects of certain things on the body, the best method seems to be the cohort study or case control method. It directly looks into what is causing issues, in my case poor respiratory function, and tries to seek them out. 

1. Cohort Study

2.Cross sectional

3.RCT

4. Anecdotal 

How do I know that the remit of the method itself is selecting the research, rather than just you on a whim? + 1 thing you found interesting + how you imagine using the source

Article #1:

Barraza-Villarreal, A., Sunyer, J., Hernandez-Cadena, L., Escamilla-Nuñez, M. C., Sienra-Monge, J. J., Ramírez-Aguilar, M., … Romieu, I. (2008). Air Pollution, Airway Inflammation, and Lung Function in a Cohort Study of Mexico City Schoolchildren. Environmental Health Perspectives, 116(6), 832–838.

This article is very relevant to my topic. It looks directly at whether there is an effect on SHORT term pollution in schoolchildren who are also asthmatics. The short term factor is important because short and long term effects can be very different.  It compares the effect on both asthmatic children and non-asthmatic children, so it would be a very good source to use on the results section. It could also be used for the introduction of the paper, as it fits so well with my topic. I found their strong results very interesting.

Article 2: 

Caroline Barakat-Haddad , Susan J. Elliott & David Pengelly (2012) Does Chronic Exposure to Air Pollution in Childhood Impact Long-Term Respiratory Health?, The Professional Geographer, 64:3, 446-463, DOI: 10.1080/00330124.2011.609775

This article once again relates very directly to my topic and research question, but in a slightly different way.  It is a LONG term study, and it studies the correlating long term effects of air pollution on the respiratory system. Instead of looking at the effects in asthmatics, it looks to see if childhood exposure to pollutants cause issues later in life, such as asthma. I could see myself using this article in the results section, as it uses unique and new information.  I really found the fact that it was looking at pollution as a cause of asthma very interesting, as opposed to source 1, which looks at the worsening of asthma  due to pollution. 

Article 3: 

Beelen, R., Hoek, G., van den Brandt, P. A., Goldbohm, R. A., Fischer, P., Schouten, L. J., … Brunekreef, B. (2008). Long-Term Effects of Traffic-Related Air Pollution on Mortality in a Dutch Cohort (NLCS-AIR Study). Environmental Health Perspectives, 116(2), 196–202. http://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.10767

This article is slightly different than the other articles, but it still relates directly to my research question. This paper looks at the effects of pollution only caused by traffic, which is much more specific than the other articles are. It is also looking at the long term effects of this pollution, but not necessarily for the effects on the respiratory system. Instead they looked at the chance of mortality, which I found extremely interesting. Although it does not seek out the correlation for traffic pollution and respiratory health, it does have some good results for it. I could see myself using this article for the methods section, and in the introduction. 

 

Article 4: 

J. Just, C. Ségala, F. Sahraoui, G. Priol, A. Grimfeld, F. Neukirch

European Respiratory Journal Oct 2002, 20 (4) 899-906; DOI: 10.1183/09031936.02.00236902

This article is about the effects on children who already have asthma, and it looks at the short term effects on these children. Instead of looking at the children during high times of pollution, like in winter, they looked at the effects on the children during low times of pollution. This caused some somewhat interesting results. Even though the levels of pollution were low, and well below the government restrictions, the children still experienced a wide variety of respiratory issues. I could see myself using this article in the results section, as it had a very interesting set of results. 

Article 5: 

Jacquemin, B., Siroux, V., Sanchez, M., Carsin, A.-E., Schikowski, T., Adam, M., … Kauffmann, F. (2015). Ambient Air Pollution and Adult Asthma Incidence in Six European Cohorts (ESCAPE). Environmental Health Perspectives, 123(6), 613–621. http://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.1408206

This article looked at the effects of pollution and the incidence of asthma in adults. It was interesting to see that the ambient pollution effected even adults heavily, as most of the other studies are about children and the effects on them. I would like to use this paper for the introduction.