{"id":128,"date":"2019-08-09T18:34:43","date_gmt":"2019-08-09T18:34:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/globalhealth\/?p=128"},"modified":"2021-12-03T15:17:08","modified_gmt":"2021-12-03T15:17:08","slug":"kelly-21-st-joseph-county-department-of-health-intern","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/globalhealth\/2019\/08\/09\/kelly-21-st-joseph-county-department-of-health-intern\/","title":{"rendered":"Kelly \u201921: St. Joseph County Department of Health Intern"},"content":{"rendered":"

Patrick Kelly \u201921 \u2014<\/em> My internship at the St. Joseph Department of Health has truly been a fantastic experience. I have been able to tackle my own project while also experiencing and observing the many facets of\u00a0the\u00a0health department. I would like to give a special thank you to the Global Health Initiative, Jill Rogers, Dr. Eric Wetzel, and Dr. Sam Milligan,\u00a0for the opportunity to participate in this awesome internship experience.<\/p>\n

Communication and Provider List<\/b><\/p>\n

At the health department, I have been creating a list of local primary care physicians in St. Joseph County. With this list containing physicians, clinics, and contact info, we are hoping to improve communication throughout the local public health infrastructure in St. Joseph County. I have also been researching best\u2013practiced communication methods for different providers and different health depart\"\"<\/a>ments. Later this year, we are hoping to develop a monthly newsletter from the St. Joseph County Department of Health with updates about health in the county.<\/p>\n

School Camps<\/b><\/p>\n

I have also been able to visit lower end elementary schools with the health department team and give healthy living lessons.\u00a0Educating\u00a0young people about healthy living is super important when thinking about the longevity of the community and public health\u00a0because\u00a0there is a huge correlation\u00a0between\u00a0education and health outcomes in a community.<\/p>\n

Community Health Program<\/b><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve also had a great opportunity to participate in a community health program led by Dr. Mark Fox and Dr. Joe\u00a0Kotva\u00a0where we\u00a0are focusing\u00a0on the social determinants of health. I participated in a \u201cneighborhood survey\u201d in South Bend of about\u00a0eight\u00a0different neighborhoods, and we presented to the class to see the difference in each.\u00a0We were looking at things like access to education, employment, transportation, food, healthcare,\u00a0decay, parks, common spaces, and community protection.\u00a0It was very interesting to see how these factors affected health outcomes. We also noticed big differences amongst the neighborhoods and the disparities in health equity. It was truly fascinating to see how it correlated with life expectancy. We looked at a map\u00a0of life expectancy and saw a difference of 13 years, but only 3 miles apart,\u00a0which is super interesting to think about.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve learned that a community plays a huge role in improving public health. It is not just the health department or the doctors, but the\u00a0community as a\u00a0whole needs\u00a0to team\u00a0up to make an impact.\u00a0We have also split into different groups to come up with a\u00a0community need to improve public health, and have the opportunity to present this information to other community members.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Patrick Kelly \u201921 \u2014 My internship at the St. Joseph Department of Health has truly been a fantastic experience. I have been able to tackle my own project while also experiencing and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-global-health-initiative"],"w_featured_image_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/globalhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/globalhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/globalhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/globalhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/globalhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/globalhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":129,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/globalhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128\/revisions\/129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/globalhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/globalhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/globalhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}