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Ecuador Acidification

This PECE essay details the quotidian anthropocene in Ecuador utilizing the Questioning Quotidian Anthropocenes analytic developed for the Open Seminar River School.

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joerene.aviles

The article notes the U.N.'s role in the cholera epidemic that killed thousands of Haitians and government and societal factors that lead to Haiti's lack of major improvement after the earthquake. Another public health issue that was mentioned was, "the only part of the Haitian government that receives direct funding from the U.S. government, the Health Ministry, has racked up impressive post-earthquake gains in childhood vaccination rates and access to lifesaving HIV treatment". 

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joerene.aviles

The report addresses how strained public health infrastructures can get in the face of large scale epidemics like in the ebola outbreak. It analyzes the responses of local government, health care workers, and MSF in the ebola outbreak, discussing what could have been done to prevent the spread and severity of the disease.

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joerene.aviles

The article describes the situation in post-Katrina New Orleans as one where trauma is constantly happening and more work is going into emergency response than recovery. Instead of construction workers, social workers and the like, the military was sent by the government for aid after Katrina. 

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joerene.aviles

The main findings in this article is the phenomenon of "biological citizenship" that occurred in the Ukraine after the Chernobyl disaster, how "scientific cooperation and political management" developed, and how sociopolitical factors affect the course of health and disease in a country. 

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joerene.aviles

The parts of the film that I found most persuasive and compelling were Atul Gawande's personal experience. As both a surgeon and son, he has the unique viewpoint of being the one to be the bearer of bad news and be the one to accept his father's mortality as his cancer progressed. Gawande gives rational and emotional parts of end-of-life care, and is able to learn new ways of handling mortality as a healthcare provider and a human. 

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KRISTIJONAS.KERTENIS
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The incredible amount of awful potholes in Newark called for this report. This report lists all of the streets and the dates that they will be paved in Newark, and it is one fat list. Newark roads are awful. Bad roads=poor infrastructure= weak resilience. If there is a disaster, someone who lives in a poor area may hit a pothole and be completely stranded and die, as a result of the poor infrastructure of our roads in Newark. I once hit a pothole in Newark and the bang from my wheel hitting the edge of the hole was loud and drastic enough for me to worry about a flat tire. I didn't get a flat, fortunately, but my tire frame was bent. 

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joerene.aviles

While the practical yield of such circumscribed inquiry has been enormous, exclusive focus on molecular­level phenomena has contributed to the increasing “desocialization” of scientific inquiry: a tendency to ask only biological questions about what are in fact biosocial phenomena [1].

What would happen if race and insurance status no longer determined who had access to the standard of care?

Sometimes public health crises, such as the AIDS pandemic in Africa, can lead to bold and specific interventions, such as the campaign to provide AIDS prevention and care as a public good [54].

In this struggle, equity in healthcare is our responsibility.

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joerene.aviles

The main arguments in the article are that globalization has created new threats to the public health and security on a global scale, with biological threats the foremost concern. "Biosecurity" is the goal, which looks at public health preparedness at all levels (local, national, international, global) with four domains: "emerging infectious disease; bioterrorism; the cutting-edge life sciences; and food safety." Despite increasing defenses and plans for current threats, the article notes that we need to become better at predicting new threats and identifying risks to biosecurity while adapting to changing political, environmental and infrastructure factors that create difficult ethical decisions.