As I am sitting in the Starbucks on 47th one
afternoon, an older woman next to me appears to be intently observing the
people in this cafe, whispering something under her breath as she points to
each person individually. As I proceeded to ignore her and continue surfing the
web, she suddenly says aloud “eight people here have an apple laptop!” and
that’s when I realized the whispering and pointing and amused expression that was coming from this woman was from her counting the number of
people with apple laptops in this given space.
As irrelevant as this little anecdote sounds, this mundane story
brings to light how accustomed most people have become to the sights and sounds of
innovation that the world has brought us to today. Everyday society is
advancing in every direction. We’re use to having access to the most
advanced in technology, medicine, education, etc. However, how much of the "world" has actually become so accustomed to hand-sized mini computers called smartphones? How is the rest of the global
world doing?
This Global Internet Map released
by TeleGeography depicts the five continents- Asia, Africa, Latin America,
North America and Europe and their access and availability to internet
bandwidth. As you can see, the map displays the variations exist within and between regions. While
some of the continents have major links to both other regions and within
itself, Africa can be seen to very few links to other regions and even fewer
within itself.
Africa’s limited availability to information plays a major
role in the major topic of this course, global health. The event that came to my mind when looking at uneven distribution
of access to information through the web lead me to look up the relatively recent polio outbreak in
Nigeria. Polio had been successfully eradicated in North America; therefore the
lack of vaccination was not the cause for the outbreak in this African country.
Rather it was cultural misconceptions to modern medicine and “new technologies and advancements in health
care were not strong enough to trump local myths and perceptions
about vaccines.” What had happened was the oral vaccination of polio that
poorer nations use, in contrast the intravenous vaccination of the wealthier
nations, were believed to contain infertility drugs. Therefore, the local
community culturally rejected this vaccine.
So how does this internet map relate to the polio outbreak in Nigeria? Technology plays a crucial role in eradication and control
of diseases. Not only does it aid research and development of vaccination but also, developing country require correct information
about disease control. In addition communities within the region must be informed about these preventable and curable diseases'. With
the internet map showing extremely few links within the continent, the simple
task of educating the public becomes rather daunting.
“Public awareness about the risk/benefits and the specific use of
vaccines is imperative so that people with not misattribute outlying illness as
a symptom of the vaccine. These messages need to be concise, yet accurate,
correct, yet simple.”
In addition, to the uneven improvements in technology, the World Health Organization announced improvement in the worldwide health industry in its 2012 World Health
Statistics. From disease to safe
drinking water to child mortality significant great strides have been made. From
2001 to 2010, the number of new cases of HIV dropped from 3.1 million to 2.7
million. In regard to safe drinking water, 89% of the population has access to
an improved source of water. As these progressing statistics look and sound
great, when we look into these numbers, concerns are raised. As the number of
new cases has decreased, of those infected with HIV worldwide, 70% of those
cases occur in sub-saharan Africa. With child mortality, the decline in Africa
is not significant enough to meet WHO’s MDGs or Millennium Development Goals.
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What this says to me is that progress is being made but that
this progress is spatially uneven. In the 2012 World Health Statistics it
states similarly that “although progress in settings
with the highest rates of mortality has been accelerated in recent years, large
variations in health status persist both between and within countries.” Today,
we are at the peak of technological innovation and this industry, among many,
is vastly growing everyday. However, as critical as it is to look at how and
how much progress is being made it is just as important to take a look at where
progress is being made so to target those who may require little extra
boost.
Ti Nguyen
World Health Organization - World Health Statistics 2012
http://datavisualization.ch/showcases/global-internet-map-from-telegeography/
http://www.globalhealthforum.org/poliooutbreak.php
As an Apple user myself, I have become relatively accustomed to the sights and sounds of innovation. Each time Apple comes out with a new and improved iPhone, iPad, iPod or MacBook, it takes them no more than a year. Because technology has become so advanced, a lot of us are eagerly trying to get our hands on the hottest new items on the market each time they come out. This shows that as individuals living in the United States, we are very privileged in types of resources, technologies, and medicines we have. I was especially interested in your article and the use of the Global Internet Map. Nowadays, the internet is a main source of information because it is fast and presents information in a very organized fashion. Since the map shows the amount of access and availability of internet bandwidth for the five continents, it can also show how technologically advanced each continent is. Your connection between Africa’s limited availability to information and global health also relates to the topic I wrote about in my blog. You mentioned that technology plays a crucial role in the eradication and control of diseases and that uneven improvement in technology has made parts of the world fall behind in dealing with such diseases. In order to correct this mishap, it is important to observe where process is being made and where it is lacking to make sure no one is left behind.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with your point of view on technology playing a crucial role in eradicating and controlling diseases. Since technology is necessary in researching and developing medicines, it is important that countries have the appropriate tools to help them spread better health. The uneven improvements of technology need to be addressed and made more evenly as one of the goals of global health is to think about health problems that transcend national borders. As I mentioned in my blog, cooperation across countries is essential in addressing health problems. Everyone should be concerned with global health issues because the health of every human being is relevant to each and every one of us. Very few people realize that the health of people around the world are inextricably linked. Since an outbreak in a country several thousand miles away can threaten the health of people at home, universal health is a very important topic. Although it is noteworthy to have the most advanced technology out there, it should not be a race when it comes to technology that deals with medical advancements and health issues. We should all think of uneven improvements in technology as a multi-legged race. As soon as one leg tries pick up the pace and step ahead, the other legs cannot keep up and soon difficulties arise. We all need to try and progress at the same rate, or at least help those who are falling behind to ensure that countries can successfully prevent and treat diseases.
I firmly believe that as a resident of America in the 21st century I am a product of the technological revolution that has become our status quo. The adaptive culture of the technology industry is something that comes without shock, and the internet has now become a grab bag of jokes, scandals, social media sites, blogs, etc. and often overlooked as the resource it can be. In this blog Ti Nguyen addressed many important points and I will comment on two of these. First, “What had happened was the oral vaccination of polio that poorer nations use, in contrast the intravenous vaccination of the wealthier nations, were believed to contain infertility drugs. Therefore, the local community culturally rejected this vaccine” (Nguyen). And second, “However, as critical as it is to look at how and how much progress is being made it is just as important to take a look at where progress is being made so to target those who may require little extra boost” (Nguyen).
ReplyDeleteIn the first statement Nguyen, addressed the fact that the lack of understanding from the Nigerian people lead to the use of less efficient drug which in turn keeps polio from being successfully eradicated in Nigeria. This is such a sad reality to me. It seems as if individuals were able to do even minimal research about medical therapies that could change their lives, the challenges faced by seemingly obvious interventions, such as the polio vaccine, would not be present. Technology, media, and education are all resources that are taken for granted in nations where they are abundant. If these assets could be spread to other nations, the possibility for more educated choices on therapies could be made by the populace providing a more positive national morale in regards to the health care infrastructure. As the saying goes “you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink” teaching individuals follows the same concept; without proper understanding there is little that can be done to make cultural differences obsolete in choices about health care. In the second statement, I understand the claim to be that there is more important information behind the statistics of productivity and progress than originally presented. I completely agree with this claim, progress must not be estimated by average numbers. Averages tell us very little about the individual advancement of nation states in underdeveloped areas of the world. When certain aspects of global health are looked at on a local level anyone can be quick to see that the World Health Organization’s MDGs are not a reality for singular nations, but rather as a general goal for the world. This begs the question, is it ok for global health to be focused on the average health of the world? Or should it be attentive to the needs of separate local areas? While I believe that there is no right answer to this question, I do think that it is something that should be thought about while studying global health. Progress will be measured, and thought of differently depending on where and who you ask; therefore I feel that it is important to understand how access to technology will influence the decisions, and in turn the progress, that may or may not be made.