Analyze

I published this news article about a hunger strike against Formosa Plastics that occurred in Texas this fall. Despite the extremity of a 30-day hunger strike, the protesting tactic has not gained attention from national media outlets. At the time I published this article, two small environmental organizations had announced the beginning of the strike, but none continued to cover the event in the unfolding weeks. While activists are driven to take on dangerous protest tactics, little communication of these tactics has carried across mass media.

The article itself introduces Formosa Plastics through its reputation as a "serial offender" of environmental and workplace safety regulations. I list several statistics on legal fines that Formosa Plastics has accumulated overtime, using these quantities to demonstrate the scale of their harm to environmental and human health. An important limitation of this storytelling strategy, however, is that many of Formosa Plastics' actions go undocumented, and even when documented, do not lead to legal consequences. Furthermore, we should still strive to acknowledge the harms committed by Formosa Plastics that are technically within legal limits.

Some residents of flooded homes in Three Rivers/Woodlake blame new housing developments that replaced orchards and a creek bed for recent flooding

Farmers drove pickup trucks loaded with dirt into a breached levee, then covered the trucks with dirt

The study analyzes the high incarceration rates in the U.S. as an epidemic connected to the lack of public health resources available to populations being arrested. 

The study is in the Annual Review of Public Health. This is just one journal out of many Annual Reviews; the studies/ topics published are solely related to public health, such as epidemiology, biostatistics, and health services. Health professionals use the Annual Review to look at major articles in Public Health, for research, and for teaching.

The study specifically addresses low-income, minority populations, who are suffering the most from the U.S.'s incarceration "epidemic".

The study looks at the physical and mental health profiles of prisoners, and incarceration as both a health risk and health opportunity. This seems like a new way of studying the issue, as I've heard of studies only looking at the race of prisoners in the U.S. 

With this data, health care professionals can expect that former inmates would be more likely to have certain diseases (tuberculosis, HIV, hepatitis C) and mental illness (drug dependence/ abuse, PTSD, anxiety), and likely didn't get treated while in prison.   

The object focused in this epidemiological study is the incarcerated group. Whereas the study has focused on the reason why certain group of people incarcerated and therefore increase the amount of drug uses and decrease the health quality. The formation of the incarcerated community has spotted on analyzing few areas that include human races, relevant family incomes and the facilities with health care in both prisons and jails.  

The final edited version has published via Annual Reviews of Public Health.

“The Annual Review of Public Health, in publication since 1980, covers significant developments in the field of Public Health, including key developments in epidemiology and biostatistics, environmental and occupational health, issues related to social environment and behavior, health services, and public health practice.” [http://www.annualreviews.org/journal/publhealth]

The journal can help the health professionals by exploring not only contents in the sub-sections of Public Health but further more explore other detailed topics with other journal sections such as Medicine, Nutrition etc.

“The mission of Annual Reviews is to provide systematic, periodic examinations of scholarly advances in a number of fields of science through critical authoritative reviews. The comprehensive critical review not only summarizes a topic but also roots out errors of fact or concept and provokes discussion that will lead to new research activity. The critical review is an essential part of the scientific method.” [http://www.annualreviews.org/page/about/our-mission-and-our-founder]