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APHA Meetings Blog
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Closing session: 'Justice is never partial. Justice is always indivisible'
"It is our responsibility to inspire each other."
Those were words from this afternoon's Closing Session speaker, author and social justice activist Angela Davis, who spoke to a standing room-only crowd on "Incarceration, Justice and Health." She began her time on stage expressing her sadness for those who now face the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy. But she quickly followed it up with anger at the many who continue to dismiss human responsibility for global warming.
She brought that energizing tone to her next topic: mass incarceration. She said it's a problem that's reached crisis proportions and for which racism plays no small part. In fact, Davis said the nation's prison industrial complex feeds on, benefits from and only entrenches structural racism. She noted that while blacks represent only 13 percent of the U.S. population, they make up nearly half of the overall prison population (Latino residents and American Indians are also disproportionately represented.) Shockingly, 25 percent of the world's incarcerated population is in the United States, home to only 5 percent of the global census, she said.
"Mass incarceration is in itself a public health hazard," Davis said.
Unfortunately, she noted that there are those who contend that some people are simply more inclined to commit criminal acts than others. But they forget — or dismiss — that certain communities are "saturated" with surveillance. While other communities may have similar rates of drug use or trafficking, there simply aren't any police there to catch them, she said.
"It's such a simple explanation as to why the vast majority of people in prison...come from a few ZIP codes," she told attendees, who could be heard murmuring in agreement.
Solving the problem is complex and like the practice of public health, it means focusing on institutions, not just on individuals, she said. People are yearning for a collective vision for a better future, but instead of responding to those needs, "we incarcerate them and pretend the problem has evaporated," she said.
"Imprisonment creates the illusion that we are addressing the problem," Davis told the crowd. "When in actuality, the problem is only being reproduced."
Davis said the struggle to free our communities from oppression goes beyond our borders — "if we are examining incarceration, justice and health, we cannot limit our field of vision to our immediate communities; it is especially important to move beyond the boundaries of the nation." She noted that more than 400,000 people are held in immigration facilities every year and that private prison corporations have a direct interest in the passage of anti-immigrant legislation.
"But people who are called illegal are showing us the way to democracy," she said. "No human being is illegal."
She encouraged attendees to think of themselves as global citizens, to see their struggles as intertwined with struggles happening in all corners of the world.
"Justice is never partial," Davis said. "Justice is always indivisible. Injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere. We need peace, equality, justice and health."
Davis continued during the Q&A with this beautiful closing quote: "When one learns how to engage in these struggles for larger causes...one sees one's light as inseparate from that process and it puts things in perspective."
Let's cap off this year's blog and Annual Meeting, which welcomed more than 12,500 attendees, with five charges from new APHA President Adewale Troutman. During his Closing Session speech, Troutman called on attendees to: bring five new APHA members to next year's Annual Meeting in Boston, where the theme will be "Think Global, Act Local: Best Practices Around the World;" stand up and take a leadership position in APHA; increase your personal knowledge of the APHA policy process; educate your local policymakers about APHA and its public health priorities; and lastly, stand for justice.
"Remember: The power of one is real," Troutman said.
See you next year in Boston for the 141st APHA Annual Meeting!
— K.K.
Above from top to bottom: Closing session speaker Angela Davis; the passing of the ceremonial gavel from immediate past APHA President Melvin Shipp (left) to new APHA President Adewale Troutman; and a pic of the Closing Session crowd. Photos courtesy Jim Ezell/EZ Event Photography
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A little birdie told me so: Tweet of the day
To date, more than 8,500 tweets using the hastag #APHA12 have been posted and the hashtag trended more than once on Twitter! Thanks for helping us spread the public health word!
On this last day of the 140th APHA Annual Meeting, which also falls on the same day as a massive ticker-tape parade in celebration of World Series champions the San Francisco Giants, the tweet of the day goes out to @zoommiler, who tweeted: Thousands of screaming San Franciscans line the streets to celebrate another successful public health conference. #APHA12
Above, a bonus pic of San Francisco's beautiful views from the top of the Marriott Marquis. Thanks San Fran and Go Giants! Photo courtesy Susan Polan
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Healthy fun, healthy youths
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Young people will practice good health. If it’s fun, that is.
At a Wednesday morning session on "Application of Innovative Approaches to Health Communication," researchers found that dancing and speed dating were effectively used to improve nutrition and breast cancer awareness.
For example, the Best Bones Forever! initiative employed a dance video contest to address the unfortunate statistic that just 15 percent of girls ages 9-13 get the recommended amounts of calcium. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the initiative pushed the contest out through Facebook and promoted messages about calcium and vitamin D to “get girls engaging in physical activity and strengthening their bones,” said session presenter Elizabeth Osborn, who helped develop the video.
As a result, 90 girls from 17 states participated in the contest. In a follow-up survey given to the participants:
• 93 percent reported learning about which physical activities help build strong bones and 90 percent reported learning about which foods and drinks help build strong bones;
• 97 percent agreed or strongly agreed to eat more bone-strengthening foods; and
• 100 percent agreed that they would participate in another dance contest.
Over at the BOLD Initiative, organizers used a five-day summer camp for high schoolers to improve students' science skills, increase student awareness of cancer and introduce students to careers in health. The camp used breast cancer as the baseline topic and hosted a "speed-dating" event in which students discussed with each other their interests in the health professions.
Lead researcher and session presenter Laura Liang said that students overwhelmingly agreed with the following statement: “This program provided me with insight that will help me make future college plans and/or career goals.”
— D.G.
Above, the Best Bones Forever! Let's Dance Contest video.
BaRf: Bioinformatics aggregated RSS feeds
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towards new shores
towards new shores barf has been unmaintaned for a while with regard to new feeds etc, current feeds are still updated regularly. Simon has made his way to Aloqa while Maxi is working at Stylefruits.
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CiteULike integration
CiteULike integration after an absence caused by master theses that needed to be written, we are happy to announce that a) the theses have been completed and b) a new experimental feature for the feeds:
we have added CiteULike links to the news items, in order to make it possible to add interesting articles to your library with a single click (and adding of tags etc). for this to work properly, you will have to be logged in to your citeulike account at the time you click the link.
we hope you enjoy this new feature. if you use a different cite manager, please don't hesitate to drop us a line and we will see if it can be integrated.
also, please don't hesitate to let us know if the links do not work for you, because the feature is not well tested yet.
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new journal
new journal Jon Houck requested the addition of NeuroImage - and here you are:)