Robeson County Health Rankings

Robeson County is poorly ranked. It is 98 out of all the Couts in North Carolina. A thing that shocked me was the sexually transmitted disease ranking. The Sexually Transmitted Infection (STI) rate is measured as chlamydia incidence per 100,000 population. Chlamydia is often caused by unsafe sex. Chlamydia is the most common bacterial STI in North America and is one of the major causes of tubal infertility, ectopic pregnancy, pelvic inflammatory disease, and chronic pelvic pain. STIs in general are associated with a significantly increased risk of morbidity and mortality, including increased risk of cervical cancer, involuntary infertility, and premature death. However, increases in reported chlamydia infections may reflect the expansion of chlamydia screening, use of increasingly sensitive diagnostic tests, an increased emphasis on case reporting from providers and laboratories, improvements in the information systems for reporting, as well as true increases in disease.

You can click here for more information about Robeson County Health ranking.

Community Health

Community health is characterized in four main categories which are social, physical, economic, an service environment. It highlights how community based organizations and leaders are changing policy to improve health. The factors can have protective or negative effects on health. A community environment with many protective factors is a healthier community. They influence individual behaviors, encouraging prevention and better management of disease, creating a healthier population. The factors impact various constituencies and community residents differently, depending on geography, size, composition, and the culture of a community.

You may notice that there aren't that many health options here in Robeson County such as hospitals and health clinics. Its very different from where I'm from, which is Cumberland County, where there's health service/ an Urgent Care on every street you turn on. If Robeson County had more options to receive health care, it would probably be a more healthier and safer community.

Unethical Studies!

The Tuskegee and Guatemala syphilis studies are unethical! For the Tuskegee studies, "The United States Public Health Service, in trying to learn more about syphilis and justify treatment programs for blacks, withheld adequate treatment from a group of poor black men who had the disease, causing needless pain and suffering for the men and their loved ones." This was unethical because the group of men that were untreated didn't agree to be left untreated. For some reason, the government chose to not provide treatment for a group of poor black men which was unfair. Im assuming that they didn't provide treatment because of the fact that they were poor, and possibly because they were African American. For the Guatemala study their subjects were prison inmates, soldiers, and mental patients. They were infected with the disease by spinal injections or by sleeping with an infected prostitute. What this study proved was that syphilis could be treated by taking a medicine called penicillin.

These studies were unethical because the participants to this study did not agree to participate. They violated their rights and put their families and the participant through tough times and heartache. Both of these studies are similar but the Guatemala study recieved treatment. In my opinion, the Tuskegee syphilis study patients were in more need of the treatment instead of prisioners or people that were infected by sleeping with an infected prostitute.

Robeson County Health Department

The county that my interviewee stays in is Robeson County. He informed me that their was a health department in Robeson County that i wasnt aware of. Its located on 460 Country Club Rd, Lumberton NC. Its open Monday - Friday and is closed on weekends. Their service includes animal control, child health, dental health, and much more. Robeson County Health Department is where almost everyone in Robeson County go to get medical help.

SOPA and PIPA

In class on Wednesday, January 18, 2012, we were talking about SOPA and PIPA.

Wednesday morning before we went to class I noticed that google and wikipedia were blacked out/ had a censor bar over the name of the website. I was wondering what was going on so I clicked on the google icon and it took me to a site where it was talking about SOPA and PIPA. The site was explaining how they're trying to band a lot of things from the Internet. In a way, this would be going against our first amendment which is our right to have freedom of speech. A lot of people are against SOPA and PIPA, including me, and are voting for them not to do what they are planning to do. In my opinion, the Internet wouldn't be the same anymore if all these sites that we go to EVERYDAY are block or restricted on what can published on it. Soo, basically I'm against SOPA and PIPA.

“We are conducting a study of health and wellness in Robeson, Scotland, and Hoke counties. What do you already know about these issues in our area? What did you learn from the readings/videos we’ve engaged with so far? What questions do you have about community health and wellness in our area?”

Health issues that i know of and have been told about that is very common in this area are diabetes and high blood pressure. I've learned that sometimes even the area that you live in can affect your health and determine how long you live.

A questions I have about community health and wellness in our area is: how can we make our environment a healtier?