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I am interested in seeing how social ties and networks have been used to cope with (un)natural disasters. My research focus on places under disasters conditions such as Puerto Rico after hurricane Maria, in which social ties have made the difference between life and death. Furthermore, “natural” disaster has been used to approved austerity measures and unjust policies to impoverished communities like in New Orleans after Katrina. These policies were not new, as they are rooted in structures of power to preserve the status quo. Yet, people have resisted, “through a network of branches, cultures, and geographies” that has stimulated a reflective process of looking within for solutions rather than outside. As often this outside solutions are not only detached from community’s reality but can perpetuate social injustices and inequalities.

McKittrick, K., & Woods, C. A. (Eds.). (2007). Black geographies and the politics of place. South End Press.

Bullard, R. D., & Wright, B. (Eds.). (2009). Race, place, and environmental justice after Hurricane Katrina: Struggles to reclaim, rebuild, and revitalize New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. Westview Press.

I followed up on the Fukushima 50 what they experienced, their lack of food and water. How they faded into the background after the event was over. The government nor the public realized the ramifications of what they had done and how they had saved them all from radiation. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/jan/11/fukushima-50-kamika…

I followed up on emergency nuclear response groups if they did exist as a cause of Fukishima and came across the possibility of using robots in the place of humans in these situations. The robots could go where the humans could not saving life and limb.http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fukushima-disaster-inspires-b…

I finally looked up the statisitcs of how much cancer was prevelant in the population after the small doses of radiation to the villages surrounding Fukishima. It was interesting to find that there were more then expected and it could be a fluke due to overlooking scanning for Thyroid cancer in children in the past. There is also no definite way to prove these cancers were a direct cause of radiation or not.http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/03/mystery-cancers-are-cropping-chi…

"After the first round of punches, the patient was "taken off the strtcher to the ground and was restrained again, patient was thrown by ESU again on to the stretcher."

"The emotionally disturbed patient was punched multiple times in the face by the cops on July 20th"

The three points that I looked up to further my understanding of the article were the PIH, how long it existed and its efforts were credible and successful in the treatment of facilitating the decrease and prevention of diease in rural areas. I looked up HIV/AIDS treatment in the US and found that up until recently, people could not afford treatment; this I found was in parallel with Hati- whose citizens could not have access to the medications they needed either. This surprised me, that a country with so much wealth, ignores its own citizens. The third point I looked up was structural violence to see if it was a credible term or if it was something made up by the author.

The narrative of the film is describing how disorganized the system of healthcare is. The film gives a one on one view of how people without insurance are left to wait for hours upon end to recieve care, then have no way to pay after they recieve treatment. The film provides a in person account of what people have to deal with, only public hospitals take patients who do not have insurance and treatment time is months in advance. The healthcare system is overflowing and the amount of resources to treat people with special circumstances are significantly less than the number of patients that need to be treated.

Three points I looked up to further my  understanding was hand, foot and mouth disease because I was not familiar with it and it interested me. In my research I  found that it was spread easily and is common today-credible in health studies. I looked up Dark Winter to advance my understanding of the article. Through this search I found that the threat of biological weapons is very much an active threat and the US must be prepared, whether through vaccinations or research into global data on sickness. I finally looked up TB DOTS.  I found that it was a strategy to stop the spread of a TB epidemic: through attacking it quickly with a cure to those infected.. It also supported the article’s idea of global health security.