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Mutual Aid/Best Practices vs Local Practices

_jzhao

This image reminds me of how mutual aid and communities keep each other fed, and safe, and how local practices are actually best practices. My own research, although not immediatley related to the specific public health concern of COVID, will focus on Indigenous food soverignty, particularly the right and autonomy to ferment and distribute alcohol (紅糯米酒) within the Amis community, and their current fight with the local health department on declaring whether or not their alcohol is "safe" for public consumption and distribution.

Mapping Detention and Toxicity

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The city of Adelanto is part of San Bernardino county, located in northern Inland Empire by the Mojave Desert. Adelanto holds the California’s largest detention center.

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Andreas_Rebmann

Emily Goldmann is a PhD and MPH (Master of Public Health) at the College of Global Public Health. She focuses on environmental and social causes of mental health and their consequences. While she doesn't focus on disasters, her studies intersect with those in which we are interested in: Global Health and causes of mental health disorders.

Sandro Galea is a physician and epidemiologist at Boston School of Public Health. He has a long list of other positions of research at other colleges as well. He focuses on how the social aspects of a community create mental disorders, particularly urban communities where mood-anxiety and substance abuse disorders are common. He has a particular focus also upon mass-trauma and disasters and how they affect the mental health of the world long term, such as 9-11 and Hurricane Katrina. He studies precisely what is relevant to the DSTS Network in these cases, where he looks at the mental health consequences instead of the physical consequences of these disasters.

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Andreas_Rebmann

This study was published in PLOS Medicine, and publishes studies across the spectrum of medical science. It is peer-reviews, and authors pay a publishing fee. It goes against the “cycle of dependency that has formed between the journals and the pharmaceutical industry.” In 2014, PLOS Medicine was given an impact factor (which measures how often studies published in the journal are cited in other studies) of 14.429, ranking 7th out of 153.

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Andreas_Rebmann

They have a lovely list on their website

Financially: Securing funding during unstable economic climate. Maintaining and improving their programs that rely on international funding. Having reserves to respond to new emergencies.

Human Resources: Finding experienced and committed staff, and qualified medical staff.

Operations: Security in areas of conflict. Balancing speaking out with accessing populations. Accessing appropriate medical treatments.