National Diaper Bank Network

I think it's fairly well known that there is such a thing as a food bank/pantry etc... When it comes to locating additional resources for families and/or individuals in need there is an organization called the National Diaper Bank Network which is based in New Haven Connecticut.Executive Director and Huffington Post contributor Diane Goldblum spoke with me about her work with the NDBN.

Q

What are your thoughts on why food pantries that have clothing and various other products such as medicine and home goods may not carry much by way of baby products?

"I think there are a couple of reasons, often they're dealing with donated products and so there are a lot more clothes and home goods that people replace regularly. Baby goods are very closely monitored and changed frequently, even cribs we used when my son was a baby are no longer acceptable by modern safety standards so there a lot of legal issues."

Q
How did you come to find out about the National Diaper BankNetwork?

"I am the founder and Executive Director. About 10 years ago I started the New Haven Diaper Bank. In New Haven CT, I saw parents who had to keep their children in a diaper for more than a day.

I saw a level of poverty in my neighborhood that was really just untenable."

Q
What kinds of factors do you feel should be taken into consideration while putting together ideas about creating assistance programs that are sustainable with or without grants?

"I think that there is a great deal you can do in a community without significant financial support. There are a lot of small organizations that take in used goods and redistribute them and that can be done in your house. When you get to a certain tipping point;then you need money. It's a matter of finding in your community individuals who have some money who want to support what your doing."

Q
Any thoughts on patterns that are found in rural areas measured against urban areas?

It is, "harder for people in rural areas because transportation is such an issue; services are spread out."

Q
This may seem like an obvious question.Why don't hospitals have some kind of public health mandate to provide such an essential item?

"Hospitals sort of generally speaking don't have mandates; they come from insurance regulations or public health regulations.Diapers are not included in any insurance formula.Food stamps for example is purely a nutritional program so they don't pay for hygenie products. Insurance, when you look at the basis for what it is supposed to be, it's for emergency situations;hospitals providediapers if children are in patients."

Q
What can people do to empower those in need of these services?

"I don't consider giving people diapers a band-aid or a handout, I think that parenting is incredibly difficult, it's incredibly difficult with resources and support.Without those things we take away from the child's potential. When you reach out to a child you are reaching out to two generations.The mother child bond is increased when a mother or parent is able to have that really positive interaction with their child.

I have a social worker background. I  have always felt like there is a huge disparity in income and in what's available to people and how much that really impacts this next generation. I grew up in a very left of liberal household."

--

On the National Diaper Bank Network website they have a feature on the left hand side of the home page called Find a Diaper Bank. There are listings on the site in various locations such as Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Tennessee,Michigan, Colorado, Washington, DC, New Jersey,Arizona, Florida etc...

I am always interested in learning more about public health, and now consider this to be a public health issue. Certainly, in order to have a thoughtful conversation about issues such as quality of life for young families overall and access to diapers and other hygiene products in particular, it makes sense to cultivate an awareness of how public health is tied to other social topics such as cost of living as well as access to gainful employment as well as being able to earn a living wage. I usually keep my posts centered around facts and the direct personal experiences of those I interview. That being said I welcome comments about the issue of fair wages.

http://diaperbanknetwork.org/

Humanite Partagee

Il est bon d'avoir un interet a apprendre quelque chose de ce que le monde ressemble du point du vue de quelqu'un d'autre. Qui est le debut d'un sentiment de partage l'humanite.

Vous ne devez pas regarder dans les yeux sur tout au moins etre en mesure a etablir un sentiment de et actions fondees sur le respect mutuel et la base la decence humaine.

Les medias sociaux ont une place dans les discussions sur le developpement une prise de conscience du monde autour de vous.

Outtakes

Public Health: Is Gun Violence a Public Health Issue?

I think this is the third time I have posted this article just in the last few months...Although I had considered writing my next article about parental leave, this is more appropriate for the time being.This incident sounds like something out of the 1950's.

How is public health defined, who decides what that definition is and on what information are they basing their decision? Who has a seat at the table while these topics are being discussed?

Recently, I found myself thinking; " How many people have to die before action is taken to decrease gun violence?" I suppose there is an argument for the fact that all societies are desensitized to their own failings.

Where then, must we go to gather together those that have the right thinking on the issues that hold us back from living up to the ideals of our society?

Although I don't recall the first time I thought about the idea of fostering discussion around gun violence as a public health issue, even a brief google search shows that this topic is already out there.

There's a lot to delve into here...

I do think that a civil society has an obligation to provide certain services to its citizens. Health care, being one of them. In order to move from talking about heady ideas and lofty goals to actually identifying what specific steps to take to create a better quality of life when it comes to access to health care, you have to get into economics.

An idea by itself is stagnant without the necessary resources and oversight to actually take action.

Rather than write this entire post from an editorial perspective, I think it will be more useful for me to give an overview of some of the voices that have chimed in to the discussion about whether or not gun violence is a public health issue.

No matter how you define it, public health only moves forward when facts are given pride of place over everything else.

If you google Public Health, the first entry that comes up is the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Other sources of information are the WHO (World Health Organization) and the APHA (American Public Health Association).

If you want to see a fact sheet on gun violence, the APHA has a resource titled, "Gun Violence Prevention." Forbes.com has an article that reviews several different perspectives on the topic of whether or not gun violence is a public health issue.

Diversity of thought  is necessary to yield any kind of forward thinking approach to improving our society; thus community activists, students, think tanks and colleges and universities should all have a role in shaping the discourse around gun violence and how best we can understand it and prevent it.

I spoke with Professor Jon Vernick, Co-Director of the Center for Gun Policy and Research  at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health about the idea of framing gun violence as a public health issue.

"Guns claim more than 30,000 lives in the United States alone every year and another additional 70,000 or so non-fatal violent injuries are associated with guns. By thinking of it as a public health problem we can consider all aspects of the problem, not just gun deaths by homicide which are of interest to the criminal justice world, (but) we can also think about suicide and accidental gun deaths. We can consider upstream solutions. Whereas the criminal justice system thinks primarily, though not exclusively about punishment, public health thinks primarily about trying to keep people from getting hurt in the first place.

Public health also has a tradition of focusing on the vector of a particular cause. In this topic, the vector is the firearm. There is a history in public health about 'how we can modify the vector'; how to keep guns out of the hands of a violent person in the first place.

There is a history of success that public health has had in other areas such as motor vehicles.By thinking of guns as a public health problem maybe there is inspiration that can be drawn from other successes."

This quote brings to the surface the idea that there are multiple aspects to gun violence which, in my opinion, is an important point. In order to make progress it is necessary for the major media outlets to inform the public of the kinds of things that are taking away from our ideas and ideals as a nation. Moving forward, it is absolutely critical to have more in-depth conversations about preventative measures. These conversations, guided by a nuanced perspective of the topic(s), inform the voting public and the wheels of progress turn...or at least that's the idea.

Relationship Between Service Providers and the Populations They Work With

As I may have mentioned here before, I first wrote about public health around 2004 when I covered an event for an organization raising awareness about cervical cancer.

Around the same time that I covered this story, I went to a women's health clinic to get standard screenings for STD's and STI's and I also wanted a screening for HPV.

I  went into this with my new found awareness that a clear pap smear result does not always mean that there is no chance that you have HPV.* I remember a staffer saying something to me along the lines of, "we usually do a pap smear and if something shows up than we screen for HPV."

While I am aware that had I gone to a different doctor or health care provider at that same clinic I may have gotten a different answer. I also appreciate that she may have handled our interaction based on what she was trained or encouraged  to do by whomever decides what the standard of care is for basic STD, STI and any other gynecological screenings.

However, there must be women who have gone to that clinic and gotten similar information about HPV screenings and had no reason to think that they were not being given the full picture.

I remember making an attempt to get an HPV screening regardless of how the pap smear results came back. This was years ago before there was any notion of an HPV vaccine on the market and I do think that there is generally much more discussion around HPV.

What I take from that experience is the importance of educating myself about my health in order to have the best possible interaction with health care providers.

In some ways, I think of healthcare as being similar to any other service in that the best result comes out of having a trusting relationship between service providers and the populations they work with.

If you are part of a population where conversations about health are limited to yearly check ups, where can you find information to compliment those discussions?

In what settings do health care providers have opportunities to interact with the populations they work with outside of formal appointments?

While conversations about sexual and reproductive health rights are critical, it is also good to just get information and to ensure that a general awareness is supported in settings such as community centers, online communities, the social media space, colleges and universities etc...





 

*I am not a medical professional and this is just me recounting my own personal experience as I remember it.

Impact and Collaborative Community Building

Earlier today, I was thinking about the non profit Love 146 and how learning about that organization has given me an awareness of another aspect of human rights work.

The first non profit organizations I learned about in my late teens and early twenties were Celebrate Life and the Rebecca Project for Human Rights focusing on cervical cancer awareness and social justice issues related to young women.

Looking back, although I am glad that I had a chance to learn about cervical cancer, I wonder how many other young women in my generation have inadequate information about sexual and reproductive health rights (SRHR).

I have maintained my interest in learning about public health topics for my own sake as well as to get information out about current topics in health.

When I think about social justice initiatives that are geared towards young women I am left thinking about where the resources are for young men.

The following talking points come to mind. (This is not at all an exhaustive list)

Where do young men have the opportunity to start cultivating the kinds of sensibilities that will most likely contribute to being a constructive member of their communities, families etc...

When the young women in whom we as a society invest get to a certain age, with whom will they be likely to be able to build a family?

How can we expect an optimal result as far as community building if the investment of resources is not across the board in terms of  impacting the lives of both young men and young women?

What are some models for community building that can actually work in day to day life?

Where does social media fit in to the process of figuring out how best to deliver services and resources to people in need as well as providing information?

What does it take to be able to untangle all of our current social issues in order to have an infrastructure of programs and information that work effectively? 

Obviously any kind of program or initiative providing direct services has to be done with an awareness of sustainability in order to have an impact that lasts beyond addressing immediate circumstances.

The bottom line is whether or not your work has an impact.

What is the lingua franca of social impact?

Public Health: Is Gun Violence a Public Health Issue?

How is public health defined, who decides what that definition is and on what information are they basing their decision? Who has a seat at the table while these topics are being discussed?

Recently, I found myself thinking; " How many people have to die before action is taken to decrease gun violence?" I suppose there is an argument for the fact that all societies are desensitized to their own failings.

Where then, must we go to gather together those that have the right thinking on the issues that hold us back from living up to the ideals of our society?

Although I don't recall the first time I thought about the idea of fostering discussion around gun violence as a public health issue, even a brief google search shows that this topic is already out there.

There's a lot to delve into here...

I do think that a civil society has an obligation to provide certain services to its citizens. Health care, being one of them. In order to move from talking about heady ideas and lofty goals to actually identifying what specific steps to take to create a better quality of life when it comes to access to health care, you have to get into economics.

An idea by itself is stagnant without the necessary resources and oversight to actually take action.

Rather than write this entire post from an editorial perspective, I think it will be more useful for me to give an overview of some of the voices that have chimed in to the discussion about whether or not gun violence is a public health issue.

No matter how you define it, public health only moves forward when facts are given pride of place over everything else.

If you google Public Health, the first entry that comes up is the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Other sources of information are the WHO (World Health Organization) and the APHA (American Public Health Association).

If you want to see a fact sheet on gun violence, the APHA has a resource titled, "Gun Violence Prevention." Forbes.com has an article that reviews several different perspectives on the topic of whether or not gun violence is a public health issue.

Diversity of thought  is necessary to yield any kind of forward thinking approach to improving our society; thus community activists, students, think tanks and colleges and universities should all have a role in shaping the discourse around gun violence and how best we can understand it and prevent it.

I spoke with Professor Jon Vernick, Co-Director of the Center for Gun Policy and Research  at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health about the idea of framing gun violence as a public health issue.

"Guns claim more than 30,000 lives in the United States alone every year and another additional 70,000 or so non-fatal violent injuries are associated with guns. By thinking of it as a public health problem we can consider all aspects of the problem, not just gun deaths by homicide which are of interest to the criminal justice world, (but) we can also think about suicide and accidental gun deaths. We can consider upstream solutions. Whereas the criminal justice system thinks primarily, though not exclusively about punishment, public health thinks primarily about trying to keep people from getting hurt in the first place.

Public health also has a tradition of focusing on the vector of a particular cause. In this topic, the vector is the firearm. There is a history in public health about 'how we can modify the vector'; how to keep guns out of the hands of a violent person in the first place.

There is a history of success that public health has had in other areas such as motor vehicles.By thinking of guns as a public health problem maybe there is inspiration that can be drawn from other successes."

This quote brings to the surface the idea that there are multiple aspects to gun violence which, in my opinion, is an important point. In order to make progress it is necessary for the major media outlets to inform the public of the kinds of things that are taking away from our ideas and ideals as a nation. Moving forward, it is absolutely critical to have more in-depth conversations about preventative measures. These conversations, guided by a nuanced perspective of the topic(s), inform the voting public and the wheels of progress turn...or at least that's the idea.