Author: Rudy Owens

Coptic Christians under assault, and memories of my Egyptian travels

Rudy OwensLeave a comment

On April 7, a mob in Cairo attacked a funeral procession of Coptic Christians, a minority in the now Muslim Brotherhood-led nation of Egypt. The attackers became violent during their seige, firing guns and throwing petrol bombs according to press reports. Prior to the fall of former president and practically dictator for life, Hosni Mubarak, state police protected Christian monasteries and churches in Egypt, due to the historic persecution of the minority Christians over decades.

Coptic Egyptians protest the assault that killed two and left nearly 100 injured at St. Mark's Cathedral in Cairo on April 7, 2013.
Coptic Egyptians protest the assault that killed two and left nearly 100 injured at St. Mark’s Cathedral in Cairo on April 7, 2013.

During the violent outburst at St. Mark’s Cathedral, two persons were killed and nearly 100 were injured. Christians inside the walled compound sustained what was called a “frenzied assault” from unknown perpetrators.

I visited in Egypt in 2004 and saw well-armed and manned police garrisons at multiple monasteries, including those in unpopulated areas, as well as at St. Mark’s Cathedral, the seat of the Coptic Christian Church. Amid the disintegration of Egyptian civil society and the ascendancy of the long-banned Muslim Brotherhood, Coptic Christians and their most sacred sanctuaries are now under direct assault. Tensions have escalated since the election of U.S.-educated and Islamist Mohamed Morsi as Egypt’s president in June 2012.

Egypt’s Coptic leaders had grown increasingly wary of worsening conditions over the last five years, particularly since the demise of U.S.-backed Hosni Mubarak. Muslim clerics, the Muslim Brotherhood, and its political wing, the Freedom and Justice Party, are credited by some media observers for inciting views hostile to the nation’s Christian minority.

Inside Bishoi Monastery, one of the oldest Coptic monasteries in Egypt 2004)
Inside Bishoi Monastery, one of the oldest Coptic monasteries in Egypt (2004).
Coptic Christians, like the young men seen here from my 2004 photo, are a persecuted minority in Egypt.
Coptic Christians, like the young men seen here from my 2004 photo, are a persecuted minority in Egypt.

In 2009, amid the swine flu scare, the Mubarak government destroyed more than 300,000 pigs, which was rebuked by the United Nations as unnecessary. Many believed the act was motivated Islam’s prohibition for eating pigs and the fact that Egypt’s pork industry is run almost entirely by Copts, many the urban poor.

One blogger wrote, “It is a national campaign to rid the country of its estimated 300,000 pigs in the name of public health.”

Copts allege the military council in the post-Mubarak era—the military still runs many Egyptian institutions and business sectors—is doing little against perpetrators of the attacks. Copts also have long complained of discrimination, including a law requiring presidential permission for churches to be built.

The Daily Star Newspaper of Lebanon reports that many Copts question their future as Egyptians. The paper notes the latest round of violence is the worse since Morsi was elected in June 2012: “Christians have been worrying about the rise of militant Islamists since the fall of President Hosni Mubarak in 2011. But after days of fighting at the cathedral and a town outside Cairo killing eight – the worst sectarian strife since Islamist President Mohammad Morsi was elected in June [2012]–many Copts now question whether they have a future in Egypt.”

Who are the Copts?

Today, Copts purportedly number about one in every 10 of Egypt’s 85 million residents. However, official statistics placed them at half that figure, or 5 million. The Coptic Church challenges that estimate, pegging their numbers at 15-18 million.

Father Tawdros at St. Anthony's Monastery in Egypt, taken in 2004.
Father Tawdros at St. Anthony’s Monastery in Egypt, taken in 2004.

The original term “Copt” simply meant a native Egyptian with no religious connotation, only later taking on its religious meaning today.

The Coptic Church is among the oldest Christian churches, preceding Islam’s arrival in Egypt by centuries in a land that is central to Judaism and Christianity. Some of the most important places to both faiths are within Egypt’s border, including Mt. Sinai and St. Catherine’s Monastery in the Sinai Peninsula.

The Copts split from the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches in 451 AD over a theological dispute over the nature of Christ. Today Copts are more similar to the Eastern Orthodox Church and perhaps the Armenian Orthodox church. In addition, the Coptic language, which is similar to the ancient Egyptian language, and written with the Greek alphabet, is still used in parts of Coptic services.

Increasing violence targets Christian minorities in the Middle East

Among the worst attacks on Egypt’s Coptic minority in recent years was the 2010-11 New Year’s Eve bombing in Alexandria. It targeted a Coptic church and killed 21. No individual has been arrested or brought to trial for the terrorist attack in one of Egypt’s most cosmopolitan and historic cities. The deed was largely forgotten with the world’s attention focussed on the “Arab Spring.”

Since the U.S.-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq in 2003, Christians throughout the Middle East have been feeling increasingly under siege. Terrorist attacks and murders of Christians have occurred widely in many countries. (See map of the dispersion of Christians throughout the region—in all cases Christians had preceded the ascendency of Islam, but today are distinct minority communities.)christians middleeast

In Egypt and to a greater degree civil-war plagued Syria, the “Arab Spring” has brought intense disorder and violence to many minorities and minority faiths (Christians, Chaldeans, Kurds, Alawites, among others). Christians regionally remain fearful of a peaceful future of coexistence in the region that gave birth to contemporary Christianity.

In Egypts, Copts are now claiming life was better under dictator Mubarak, who dealt brutally with Islamists and their radical military wing, who waged a military and political campaign for decades.

Many Copts believe Muslim radicals want to eradicate Christianity, whose roots in Egypt predate the Islamic era.

According to an article published by the Middle East Quarterly, Muslim rulers historically have denied collective minority rights of non-believers. The concept of dhimmitude—itself a controversial term—explains the Islamic practice of denying equality to Jews and Christians, who historically since the Middle Ages have lived within the political realm of Muslim rulers and nations. Islam provided religious autonomy, not national freedom. To be fair, political rights for many groups, women, economic classes, and faiths everywhere in the world have not been fully realized until the last two centuries, and slowly at best and still not even today.

Memories of monasteries and my travels in Egypt

Whenever overseas events occur, it is often impossible to feel a connection to them. For me, in the case of Egypt, the collapse of Egyptian civil society has had great resonance for me. I had a chance to tour many parts of the country in 2004, observing the great poverty experienced by tens of millions of Egyptians on Mubarak’s corrupt rule. I was treated well, and I met many wonderful people, Muslim and Christians alike.

My visit to the St. George Monastery near Luxor required the permission of the local army commander for entire region around the Valley of the Kings (2004).
My visit to the St. Tawdros Monastery near Luxor required the permission of the local army commander for the entire region around the Valley of the Kings (taken in 2004).
CopticEgypt5
Suryani Monastery (2004).

I also visited many remote monasteries throughout the country—St. Catherine’s in the Sinai (run by the Greek Orthodox), St. Anthony’s in a remote inland oasis 30 miles from the Red Sea, Bishoi and Suryani monasteries in the Wadi Natrun oasis about 80 miles northwest of Cairo, and St. George’s and St. Tawdros’s monasteries, in the desert near Luxor.

The monasteries date as far back the 4th century AD, preceding the Islamic Arab conquest of that followed in the seventh century. Today about 50 monasteries remain.

I found the Coptic monasteries to be breathtakingly beautiful and peaceful. These are continuously inhabited facilities, but also significant cultural and historic sites.

The monks who greeted me were generous and gave me tours of their facilities. At St. Tawdros’s Monastery, I required a police escort of no less than the commander of the entire military contingent protecting the Valley of Kings region, one of the most popular tourist destinations in Egypt and the scene of one of Egypt’s more violent terrorist assaults. At all of the compounds, there were armed guards in large numbers.

Those guards have now melted away. In fact, it was the Egyptian military that led a coordinated assault on the Bishoi Monastery in February 2011, shortly after the terrorist bombing in Alexandria.

The video shows nothing less than a full assault of armed men, equipped with armored personnel carriers and bulldozers, demolishing an outer protective wall that I recall seeing built during my 2004 visit. The government denied responsibility despite the glaring video evidence. Today the monastery, one of Egypt’s great historic treasures, is now at risk of increased mob and organized violence by Islamic radicals and political extremists.

Egyptian military were filmed leading an attack on the Bishoi monastery in February 2011, which destroyed a protected outer wall.
Click on the image to see the full video of the Egyptian military leading an attack on the Bishoi monastery in February 2011, which destroyed a protected outer wall.

I’m not sure what will happen in Egypt. It is likely Egypt’s Christians will remain a persecuted minority and some of the world’s greatest historic treasures will be desecrated by extremists and opportunists, as was seen after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and as the world is observing in Syria amid its civil war.

America’s cultural zeitgeist and the emerging Don Corleone of public health

Rudy OwensLeave a comment

This has been one of the wildest weeks exposing the extremes of America’s cultural zeitgeist I can remember. What could be more American than gay marriage moving to the mainstream of American life and semi-automatic weapons readily available at a Walmart  near you, right?

Need a weapon of war to feel safe? Just drive to the nearest Walmart near you and select from their popular product lines.
Need a weapon of war to feel safe? Just drive to the nearest Walmart near you and select from their popular product lines.

On one hand, you have the U.S. Supreme Court hearing two landmarks cases, one on the legality of a voter approved ban on same sex marriage and another on the constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which aligns hundreds of federal benefits to promote that only a man can legally marry a woman.

Meanwhile, a full-court press was taking place in Congress to advance legislation that would require criminal background checks on all gun purchases and that would close the so-called gun-show loophole, which allows for up to 40% of all firearms sales to evade any scrutiny at all. However, efforts to include Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s amendment to restrict the sale of semiautomatic, military style assault rifles —the kind used to slaughter 26 civilians at Newtown—were dashed when Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), on March 20, pulled it from the current gun legislation in the U.S. Senate. GOP members of Congress are already promising to filibuster the bill.

Will Ferrell, actor, comedian, and cultural clairvoyant, seemed to sum up the obvious best.
Will Ferrell, actor, comedian, and cultural clairvoyant, seemed to sum up the obvious best.

Will Ferrell’s now much repeated tweet seemed to put the pulse of the nation best: “I feel so blessed that the government protects my wife and me from the dangers of gay marriage so we can safely go buy some assault weapons.”

And, as we have so often seen in our country, sometimes tasteless, but also very popular, comedians can best summarize the seemingly craziness of political reality, where serious-minded commentators fall flat. Perhaps only through comedy can we see the absolutely surreality of our current reality.

Bloomberg takes on the NRA: no quarter asked, and none given

This week also saw the launch of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s $12 million campaign in 10 states to promote federal gun legislation, through his national coalition of big city mayors called Mayors Against Illegal Guns. “I don’t think there’s ever been an issue where the public has spoken so clearly, where Congress hasn’t eventually understood and done the right thing,” said the multi-billionaire leader of a national political movement to restrict the proliferation of weapons that claim more than 31,000 lives annually.

Bloomberg’s newly created super PAC, Independence USA PAC, infused millions in the last federal election cycle, helping elect four of seven candidates who promoted legislation to reduce gun violence in the United States, a major public health threat that only now is getting the attention of public health  officials nationally after years of self-imposed silence.

Wayne LaPierre went head to head with Michael Bloomberg on the talk shows.
Wayne LaPierre went head to head with Michael Bloomberg on the talk shows.

Likely fearing the emergence of a national political movement, the National Rifle association (NRA) launched a counter-strike against Bloomberg’s media campaign. NRA head Wayne LaPierre sparred with Bloomberg on Meet the Press on March 24, framing Bloomberg as a plutocratic, public health-minded uber-nanny who threatened America’s freedoms, including the alleged right to own guns and the right to eat unhealthy food:

“And he can’t spend enough of his $27 billion to try to impose his will on the American public,” said LaPierre, the national face for the most powerful gun industry lobby.”They don’t want him in their restaurants, they don’t want him in their homes. They don’t want him telling them what food to eat; they sure don’t want him telling them what self-defense firearms to own. And he can’t buy America.”

Which multi-billionaire do you want to champion public health, Gates or Bloomberg?

Bloomberg’s efforts to limit the size of sugary drinks in New York City was recently struck down by the courts. But Bloomberg remains determined to preserve his emerging national status as the Don Corleone of public health.

From pushing upstream interventions to tackle obesity to funding multiple efforts to reframe the national dialogue on guns and America, Bloomberg appears to be everywhere at once these days. In many ways, the bolder, tougher, more confrontational face for public health and the national voice for legislative action on clear public health threats is the 71-year-old Boston native.

By force of will and deep pockets, Bloomberg is emerging as a rival brand for plutocratic public health warrior to reigning champion Bill Gates, whose Microsoft-based wealth helped fund the biggest non-governmental player in public health, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. With $34 billion in assets it is the largest openly run private foundation on the planet.

Which Don Corleone do you want to promote public health, Bill Gates or Michael Bloomberg?
Which Don Corleone do you want to promote public health, Bill Gates or Michael Bloomberg?

Multi-billionaire Gates carefully has chosen non-confrontational public health initiatives that many limited-government and conservative minded leaders can champion, such as poverty reduction programs, education programs, and promoting technological efforts such as genetically modified crops.  Bloomberg’s approach is a much more in-your-face, New York style. He has proven very effective on the bully pulpit by staking out public positions and articulating views that few in the field of public health or even elected office have championed since the assault weapons ban was passed in 1994 as part of a major cops bill under the Clinton White House.

One thing is clear. Leadership, in the wake of repeated gun-fueled tragedies, like the Sandyhook Elementary School mass murders, is making a difference. And for a change, it appears that the NRA’s seeming unshakable momentum to promote the ever-expanding sales of firearms and legislation that allows for the deadly use of force has been called into check.

This also has rippled down to the public health departments, which are now showing greater resolve and passing measures calling firearms-related deaths a threat to public health and totally preventable. Maybe Bloomberg’s moxie is rubbing off. Such symbolic efforts by public health departments clearly are not a true fix, but they are a long-awaited and long-overdue baby step forward.

The politicization of public health (and everything else too)

Rudy Owens1 Comment
maherobama
Click on the photo to open a link to the video clip of Maher’s commentary.

Some might say TV host Bill Maher is so political that he cannot be trusted. I disagree.

On March 8, on his TV show, Maher delivered a very provocative commentary that everyone in the field of health promotion, public health, and public policy should watch. Maher rightly asked, “Since when in America did everything have to be so political?” It was a smart piece of punditry, because he correctly showed how efforts to promote public health, nutrition, and healthy eating had become as politicized as the debate over regulating the proliferation of firearms.

Showing pictures of First Lady Michelle Obama, a champion of a national nutrition and exercise campaign called Let’s Move, Maher opined, “If seeing this nice lady on TV saying she likes the movies, or nutrition, or exercise fills you with rage, get help.”

Maher further correctly noted, “Big portions, conservative; knowing where your food came from, liberal.” In short, Maher said what few in the public health profession are saying or have the courage to say—that a deep schism exists in the public space that taints and will continue to taint all efforts to tackle some of this country’s biggest health problems.

These include the obesity epidemic and the threat posed to our healthcare system and our national health by chronic disease.

Ever a political lightning rod who is ready to fan conservative flames, former half-term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin used her speaking appearance  at the 40th annual Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) conference on March 16, to lambaste New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s efforts to tackle obesity by limiting the size of sugary-sweetened beverages. Bloomberg’s New York City law to limit the serving size of such drinks to just 16 ounces was  overturned by a New York State Judge on March 11.

This perfectly framedAP file photo from March 16 shows Palin's eager embrace of red-meat politics that seeks to prevent small measures to address the proliferation of obesity in the United States.
This perfectly framed AP file photo from March 16 shows half-term former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s eager embrace of red-meat politics that seeks to prevent small measures to address the proliferation of obesity in the United States.

Completely ignoring the obesity crisis that is afflicting her own former state and the country, where two-thirds of all residents are obese or overweight, Palin slurped soda from a 7-11 Big Gulp. The theatrics, all perfectly inline with Palin’s anti-government theology, again proved Maher’s point about the politicization of even micro efforts by some local elected officials to address the public health threats facing the country. (Side note, Palin briefly was governor when I lived in Alaska, and I saw her at health promotion events like community runs–an action that she likely would brand as “liberal” today.)

Whenever I would engage Puget Sound area public health officials during my two years of study at the University of Washington School of Public Health (2010-’12), I always asked, how can you prevent the public perception that efforts to promote healthy activity and nutrition are not perceived by conservative voters and Republican elected officials as part of a liberal, activist agenda. I never got a good answer, mainly because I do not believe those officials had an answer. I did not draw any great wisdom from my faculty or UW SPH peers either.

Some wonkish types have tried to investigate this issue in “philosophical terms,” along traditional axes of egalitarianism/choice minded conservatism against regulation-minded “big government” liberalism. One 2005 article on responsibility in health care choices argued, “Holding individuals accountable for their choices in the context of health care is, however, controversial.” There may be some truth to this, but I discount the “core political values” explanation as a way of understanding the politicization of public health initiatives.

Perhaps the biggest fight  in the U.S. political system today is over tax policy and the future of major social/medical programs—Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid—that provide the true underpinning to the public wellness of our country. This is, at its core, is vicious political battle that will shape the public health of the country unlike any action taken by any regulatory or health agency of the U.S. government.

Regulation to promote health has been at the heart of the public health enterprise ever since the field emerged as a profession in the United States in the late 1800s. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, many of the most successful public health achievements of the 20th century  (food safety, motor vehicle safety, identifying tobacco as a health hazard, etc.) were “upstream” interventions that, by definition, were regulatory in nature and thus purely political.

However, public health, by being a public enterprise, is by definition a creature of the political process, and thus influenced through the power of the purse to curtail its authority and stymie its reach. Public health departments today, for instance, are managed by publicly accountable officials. A local public health department board of health, like King County’s, includes a broad range of elected officials and a few medical professionals.

The nation’s leading de facto public health official, the U.S. Surgeon General (Dr. Regina Benjamin), today remains a mostly toothless position that has little if no sway over the public policy debate concerning the nation’s public health, according to New York Times health blogger Mark Bittman. He writes, “… there is no official and identifiable spokesperson for the nation’s public health, and the obfuscation and confusion sown by Big Food, along with its outright lies and lobbying might, has created a situation in which no one in power will speak the truth: that our diet is making us sick, causing millions of premature deaths each year and driving health care costs through the roof.”

I personally believe that the position of Surgeon General remains that of a paper tiger because those who have power, members of Congress and the Executive Branch, do no wish to allow an advocate for public health to embarrass them with pesky things like facts and science that call for action.

Dr. C. Everett Koop, former U.S. Surgeon General and effective communicator and advocate for public health.
Dr. C. Everett Koop, former U.S. Surgeon General and effective communicator and advocate for public health.

The most effective Surgeon General in living memory who recently passed away in February, the late Dr. C. Everett Koop, proved unpredictable. Though a staunch conservative appointed by President Ronald Reagan, Dr. Koop staked out very controversial political positions on moral and medical grounds, in defiance of his boss, Reagan.

His notable actions still stand out today for their audacity to challenge powerful interests and their embrace of morality as a tactical advocacy tool:

  • Koop’s office produced the plainly worded, 36-page “Surgeon General’s Report on Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome,” which clinically detailed HIV transmission, making clear it was not spread by casual contact and affirming that, “We are fighting a disease, not people.” Koop promoted sex education and condom use, enraging conservative critics.
  • Koop also took on the all-powerful tobacco industry and lawmakers who received its many contributions with his pronouncements that smoking killed and should be banned. He famously called purveyors of cigarettes the “merchants of death.” (When is the last time anyone has heard a medical leader embrace such powerful language for a public health cause?)

Though Koop reportedly claimed morality never “clouded his judgment,” he remained an effective advocate on the bully pulpit by literally shaming those in power. “My whole career had been dedicated to prolonging lives,” he said, “especially the lives of people who were weak and powerless, the disenfranchised who needed an advocate: newborns who needed surgery, handicapped children, unborn children . . .people with AIDS.”

I keep waiting for someone, anyone besides billionaire Mayor Bloomberg, to enter the political discourse on behalf of public health and use straight language that cuts through the hype. The problem is, they cannot teach you leadership when you enter the fields of public health or politics. It is something you either are capable of, or simply lack. Right now, it is lacking.

Do community health fairs really make any difference at all?

Rudy Owens2 Comments

As a frequent community event and festival attendee in Seattle and many other communities, I have always wondered how effective these events have been in achieving their goals of promoting health and wellness. In the public health world, we call these “health fairs,” and they are fairly ubiquitous nationally and accepted with de rigueur. But do they really work?

Somewhat new to the field of public health, I am more familiar with trade shows, which I have been attending for many years. These much more ubiquitous activities provide a common space where companies, governments, and a mass market meet to hopefully find audiences and make sales. They do not seem to be going out of fashion. One show I attended, the biennial Oil and Gas Expo in Calgary, one of the continent’s largest energy shows, draws 20,000 attendees from around the world and sells out every hotel room during its June run. The massive trade fair also attracts some of the world’s largest and most influential companies. So clearly where money is to be made, “the show must go on.”

The super-sized Oil and Gas Expo in Calgary is a perfect example of how important trade fairs are in the private sector.
The super-sized Oil and Gas Expo in Calgary is a perfect example of how important trade fairs are in the private sector.

But what of health fairs that cater to smaller subpopulations, and sell messages, behavior change, and health awareness that can be even unwanted by the audience? I recall distinctly that one of my public health professors at the UW School of Public Health, who shall remain nameless, said s/he had never seen any evidence this public health activity had any measurable outcomes, yet they proliferated as a best practice.

Champions of the health fair model

One fan of community health fairs is Dr. Kevin Pho, an internal medicine specialist who also runs a blog that attempts to reach out to a mass audience. On his blog, KevinMD.com, he gives space to another blogger, who does not give his name and thus we do not know if he is a true MD. But Dr. Pho claims he is, and by endorsing his colleague, he publishes a passionate defense of health fairs as a way of extending medical care without medical hierarchy: “Meeting in this context fosters rapprochement between patient and doctor. The once hierarchical encounter is no more. In this habitat, doctor and patient are in fellowship.” The mystery doctor, who we cannot fully validate, claims that health fairs:

  • Are an excellent way to engage underserved communities in caring for their health.
  • Offer a unique opportunity to engage patients in the community with which they self-identify, particularly when they are in the “precontemplation” phase of action.
  • Are a great opportunity to field patient questions–he claims to have fielded many questions about Bill Clinton’s post-bypass surgery veganism.
  • Uncover and provide the platform to correct misconceptions, in a nonconfrontational setting that can lead to positive discussions.
  • Can grow a doctor’s practice.
  • Are fun.

    At the 2013 Tet Fest at the Seatte Center, a health clinic table was set up amid other tables hawking cell phone plans and new bank accounts.
    At the 2013 Tet Fest at the Seatte Center, a health clinic table was set up amid other tables hawking cell phone plans and new bank accounts.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) publishes how-to guides how to organize events that engage target communities, such as this guide focusing on injury prevention for kids. Seattle, where I live, is virtually awash in corporate medical events that also involve local partners, like the Seattle Housing Authority and social service providers like Neighborhood House.

These event focus on many of the many minority populations in King County, such as the Latino community, which was engaged at the annual Fiestas Patrias event held in September at the Seattle Center. This particular fair focussed on HIV testing, behavioral health, dental care, long-term care, cancer, chronic disease, and culturally appropriate care for the Spanish-speaking community.

I was recently at the annual Tet celebration at the Seattle Center the weekend of Feb. 16-17, 2013, and not to my surprise saw a table promoting health-fair-styled information for the nearly entirely Vietnamese-American audience in attendance. I did not have the ability to know if anyone attending bothered with that booth or were more interested in the photo booth, the deep fried tofu and Vietnamese coffee, or stage shows.

A booth offering Tet pictures appeared to be more popular than the health clinic table at the Tet Fest in Seattle in February 2013.
A booth offering Tet pictures appeared to be more popular than the health clinic table at the Tet Fest in Seattle in February 2013.

What do we know from recent research?

One non-profit, called Unite for Sight, published an article that reported that there was inconclusive evidence about the benefits of health fairs and community screenings. The medical literature has often viewed them with great skepticism. “Health fairs are neither regulated nor routinely certified in the United States, and complete data on their numbers and content are not available.” The article further noted that tests at fairs may be more harmful than helpful because the may unnecessarily alarm participants with bad results, or provide false reassurance that results shown are normal.The article cites a 1985 study that found “rates of false alarm of healthy people and false reassurance of those at risk may be high for some tests, and the benefits of detecting new disease are easily overestimated.”

A more recent 2011 study on blood pressure screenings at community health fairs, published in the Journal of Community Nursing, looked at outreach on hypertension. The article reported “nurse-operated health fairs, crafted to identify those with high BP readings, are promising as a simple and effective means in motivating individuals to seek follow-up care.”

Another study from 2003, Reconsidering Community-Based Health Promotion: Promise, Performance, and Potential, published in the American Journal of Public Health, found that “evidence from health promotion programs employing a community-based framework suggests that achieving behavioral and health change across an entire community is a challenging goal that many programs have failed to attain.” The authors, Cheryl Merzel and Joanna D’Afflitt, write that “interventions themselves probably are too limited in scope and intensity to produce large effects across a community. Many programs focus primarily on individuals, with most people receiving mass education alone, and interventions and messages are not sufficiently tailored to reach various population subgroups.”

How well do health tables compete with the private sector like banks, as seen at Seattle's 2013 Tet Fest.
How well do health tables compete with the private sector like banks, as seen at Seattle’s 2013 Tet Fest.

The article, however, reported that community interventions have been found to work for, say, HIV. They call this the “prevention paradox,” or the fact that prevention measures that bring big benefits to the community have little benefit to individuals. Thus, most community-based chronic disease prevention programs have  reportedly found it hard to get individuals to change their behavior, but HIV-related programs have reportedly worked.

Merzel and D’Affliti suggest that HIV programs may be more successful than other health fair promotion events because they go after small and homogenous groups. This is harder to do with large, diverse groups. So “getting identifiable social groups to change specific behaviors with discrete levels of individual risk may be more achievable than developing multiple interventions designed to motivate numerous subgroups of varying risk found within a broad geographically defined community.”

Are Swedes more beautiful, or do they just have a better public health system?

Rudy Owens2 Comments

I have always thought about what makes some people look better than others — at the individual, ethnic, and national level. Having travelled on six continents, I have been able to test ideas and stereotypes—including my own—through personal observations.

Is "Jenny," who I saw on a YouTube video teaching yoga-type exercises, good looking because she is Swedish, and if so, what does that mean?
Is “Jenny,” who I saw on a YouTube video teaching yoga-type exercises, good looking because she is Swedish, and if so, what does that mean?

This all came back to me last night while I was surfing YouTube for a video on ski waxing, where I, yes, got distracted by what looked like a very healthy and attractive woman doing yoga. Instead of it being a yoga tutorial, it was a video published by two young Swedish women that is mostly a product of personal vanity and that natural desire to express one’s self. I believe their names are Jenny and Andrea, and they appear to have a preoccupation with their admittedly very good looks. I cannot fault them for that.

Yes, these two are very physically attractive. But I again thought about why? Why are many Swedish and other Scandinavian women I have met so attractive?

First, I do not ascribe to the idea of “national beauty” or the national ranking systems that have little scientific validity. Social and popular media are obsessed with the idea that Swedish women are among the world’s most beautiful. A dubious online source called Traveller’s Digest claims Sweden tops their list of countries with the hottest looking women. (The country’s men also rank No. 1). Such rankings amount to Internet silliness.

I traveled to Sweden in 1990 for about a week, staying with friends I met in India (Eva and Eva — yes the real names). I found many people I met there to be healthy and attractive, but not to an extreme. I did find an excessive amount of out of control binge drinking in the social circles my generous hosts ran with, particularly among college-age and slightly older Swedes. In fact, globally, I have found few places that matched the excessive drinking I saw all over Sweden.

I also have seen Swedes globally, and in general many do appear more fit and healthier than the typical American, who rightly has earned a reputation as being overweight and thus unhealthy, and therefore unattractive in the eyes of many. Such data is borne out by national health statistics, as America is the fattest country on the planet, and because of that, my country does not have the reputation as Sweden does for the hottest men and hottest women, I think.

One of the most ubiquitous stereotypes of nationalities is that of "hot" Swedish women--perpetuated by photos like this one.
One of the most ubiquitous stereotypes of nationalities is that of “hot” Swedish women–perpetuated by photos like this one.

Globally, Sweden does very well in terms of health rankings and public health investments. Sweden scores highly in terms of life expectancy from birth, ranking No. 16 among all countries (81.8 years). Its Nordic neighbor, Norway, ranks 25th (80.32 years). The United States fares worse than both, and Jordan, and New Zealand, and, well, 50 other countries, at 78.5 years. By comparison the much poorer Cuba, with a vastly lower standard of living (less than 20% of the United States per capita), ranks No. 60, with a life expectancy of 77.9 years.

In 2010, according to the World Bank, Sweden spent 9.6% of its GDP on public and private health, including preventive and curative services, family planning activities, nutrition activities, and emergency aid designated for health but not water and sanitation. Norway spent nearly the same amount, or 9.5%, while the United States was staggeringly inefficient, spending 17.9% of its GDP, and the trend is getting worse.

The socialist and undemocratic Cuba, which invests heavily in public health for its population, spent a mere 10.6% of its GDP, but had nearly the same life expectancy per person as its mighty northern neighbor, America. So even though the United States spends nearly twice as much as these three countries, it does not have results to show for it.stats for four countries income health obesity

Such discrepancies are frequently cited highlighting how grossly inefficient U.S. health care is compared to countries with strong government-backed and financed health systems.

But do such investments have anything to do with physical appearance, and thus beauty?

Well, expanding waist lines and bulging bottoms, which nearly most people globally do not view as physically attractive, seem to indicate that Americans are likely to be less attractive than Cubans, Norwegians, and those stereotypically “hot” Swedes.

The International Obesity Task Force estimates that, globally, 1 billion adults are overweight (BMI 25-29.9 kg/m2) and 475 million are obese. In the United States, two-thirds of all residents are obese or overweight. The United States is the world’s heaviest country per person–a dismal and frighteningly scary statistic for our healthcare system and for future incidence of many of our top killers (cancer, heart disease, as well as diabetes, though further down the list).

So why, say, is Sweden doing better than many countries and the United States.

For starters, everyone in Sweden has equal access to health care services under a decentralized, taxpayer system. The Swedish Institute reports that every city council “must work to promote good health for the entire population.” Again, this is a vastly different value system than the United States’, where taxes are viewed with increasing hostility by the political right and where individuals are still, for the most part, considered responsible for their health.

This photo published by the Swedish Institute highlights a view of health, from youth to old age, and by most measures, Swedes are healthier and live longer than Americans.
This photo published by the Swedish Institute highlights a view of health, from youth to old age, and by most measures, Swedes are healthier and live longer than Americans.

In Sweden the responsibility for health and medical care is a shared responsibility of the central government, county councils, and municipalities. The country’s Health and Medical Service Act regulates the roles of county councils and municipalities, and it gives local governments freedom in this area, while the central government sets principles and guidelines for health and medical care.

What’s more, Sweden’s maternal mortality, another key public health indicator, is among the world’s lowest: 2.74 in 1,000 babies and less than than 1 woman out of 100,000 die in birth. “Swedish maternal care is often highlighted as a success story in international contexts,” boasts the Swedish Institute. By comparison, the United States infant mortality rate is 6 per 1,000 (bested by Cuba’s 4.73 per 1,000).

So in the end, you have a country that invests more in its people and in the health of its people, who likely have a good chance of being active and also avoiding stigma associated with excessive weight. It’s not so much that Swedish women, like Jenny in the exercise video, is anything extraordinary, though she is very attractive because she is healthy. She is, perhaps without her full awareness, the recipient of extensive investments in her education, her health from cradle to grave, and a social contract that values the well-being of the population.

The International Obesity Task Force published this map of obesity rates globally; some data likely is missing for African nations.
The International Obesity Task Force published this map of obesity rates globally; some data likely is missing for African nations.

And how do we react when we see Swedes, on YouTube or traveling abroad, or in business or education settings? We react positively.

An August 2012 story published in Psychology Today (“I’m Successful Because I’m Beautiful”– How we Discriminate in Favor of Attractive People) highlighted some frequently cited studies on how specific physical traits are rewarded.

The article quotes Dr. Gordon Patzer, who reportedly conducted three decades of research on the topic and found that human beings are “hard-wired” to respond more favorably to those who are attractive: “Good-looking men and women are generally regarded to be more talented, kind, honest, and intelligent than their less attractive counterparts.”

Still, obesity is afflicting even the Nordic countries, which has universal health care and strong safety nets. A 2010 study by Kirsti Matlerud and Kjersti Ulrisken in the journal Patient Education and Counseling (“Norwegians fear fatness more than anything else”–A qualitative study of normative newspaper message on obesity and health) looked at how newspapers in that affluent country sent messages on body weight. They found in a public survey, when people were asked what health problems they would like the health authorities to give priority to, obesity ranked highest, and then followed by care for the elderly, cancer, psychiatry, and cardiovascular disease. They also reported a general attitude of fatness being associated with being lazy and irresponsible.

So yes, they do care about their looks in Nordic nations and discriminate against overweight persons, much the way we do in the United States. They just do a better job of ensuring their population stays healthier. Jenny and Andrea have reaped the benefits and get the added benefits of being viewed as  attractive and being seen more favorably than those who have not had a national health system ensuring its population has the best possible chance of being healthy.

Rally to ban assault weapons lays out strategy for Washington State activists

Rudy OwensLeave a comment

I attended a rally today (Jan. 13, 2013) in Seattle that included a march through downtown to the Seattle Center. The event called for an immediate ban on assault weapons and better laws to require background checks on all weapons sales. The march was organized by the non-profit called Washington Ceasefire, a state-based group founded in 1983 and dedicated to reducing violence from guns in the United States. (See my photo essay below.)

The event attracted somewhat lukewarm media coverage as of this evening, with stories picked up by most of Seattle’s major broadcast media, including the major TV news stations. The event was competing with the story that mattered most to Seattle–the playoff game that saw the Seattle Seahawks fall in a heart-breaker to the Atlanta Falcons. Still, approximately 400-500 participants attended the rally that marched about a half mile from Westlake Center to the Seattle Center.

The event began with a speech by mayoral candidate and current City Councilman Tim Burgess, a former Seattle police officer who called for attendees to focus their advocacy on immediate actions that could be taken by the Washington State Legislature. No specific state-level legislation or bills were identified, and Burgess’ rallying cry noticeably did not call for any specific federal action, perhaps because such proposals are still being formulated by the Obama White House.

Nor were any of the state’s congressional members referenced in public remarks or acknowledged in any event promotional material I am aware of. (Note I left the rally before it ended.) To my knowledge, no member of the state’s congressional delegation officially participated in the speaking activities, nor did their staff. I found that omission intentional and noteworthy. I am sure many attending noticed this also.

Washington Ceasefire President Ralph Fascitelli specifically called on an outright ban on assault weapons and sensible gun legislation. The web site created to promote the event quoted the group’s executive director, Beth Flynn: “We want to send a clear message to our legislators that we want to ban semi-automatic assault weapons.”

It was refreshing to me, as a public health professional, to hear Councilman Burgess make reference to the public health threat posed by firearms in his remarks. I spotted at least one retired University of Washington School of Public Health faculty member in attendance and holding a sign, which was very encouraging. I also met other public health professionals in the audience. Again, nice to see.

A list of the dignitaries who were invited to speak can be found here. I spied Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn, Councilman Nick Lacata, Councilmember Jean Godden, State Rep. Reuven Carlyle (D-Seattle), and other civic and religious leaders on the Mural Amphitheater stage at the Seattle Center, where remarks were made.

Also noteworthy was the presence of gun-rights activists. I saw two men wearing handguns in their holsters at the Westlake Center. So, I took their photographs. No doubt groups opposed to firearms legislation were monitoring the event and were mixing with the crowd. I observed very peaceful exchanges between those for greater legislation and those opposed to it. I included a photograph of the two men who were armed below to highlight how they communicated their views–at least through a visible display of their guns for the TV cameras and for those seeking legislation to control firearms violence.

Photographs of the StandUp Washington rally, January 13, 2013 (click on each thumbnail for a larger image)

How research on gun violence is muffled, and who refuses to shut up

Rudy Owens1 Comment

On the first day in the new year, I read one of what will become thousands of similar stories that will be published this year in the United States about how firearms were involved in completely senseless and preventable violence.

To understand why we have so many shootings, one may wish to buy this book: Armed America: Portraits of Gun Owners in Their Homes by Kyle Cassidy. Go to http://www.armedamerica.org/. The cover photo provides a shockingly good insight into the national crisis over gun related violence.
To understand why the United States has so many shootings, one may wish to buy this book, Armed America: Portraits of Gun Owners in Their Homes, by Kyle Cassidy. Go to http://www.armedamerica.org/. This book cover photo offers one perspective on the national crisis over the nation’s gun-related violence.

In this particular instance, a 54-year-old woman reportedly shot a  24-year-old man in the thigh over a dispute that he was shooting fireworks at her property in rural Lake Stevens, Wash. No, I am not making this up.

While no one died in this New Year’s eve confrontation, the story barely received three paragraphs of news coverage, as it lacked the dramatic horror that the media exploit when mass homicides occur involving often-legally purchased weapons. There were no dead children or mentally deranged men in military gear loaded with weaponry. Were this story to occur in Canada, or say Japan, it would have received much different coverage.

While we may assume this seemingly “bland” shooting will be counted in national data, that is not guaranteed. It likely could be ignored.

In response to uncertainty over national data, Slate Magazine, on Jan. 1, 2013,  published a story called How Many People Have Been Killed by Guns Since Newtown?. The article alleges guns statistics are “surprisingly hard to come by.” Slate claims it will track the toll of gun related killings with an an anonymous publisher with the Twitter feed @GunsDeath to create an interactive tracking feature. The articles asks readers  who know about gun deaths in their community that are not counted on its interactive map  to tweet @GunDeaths with a citation, and it will be added to the feed.

brady center stat count
The Brady Center keeps a daily tab on gun violence–go to the right corner of the center’s home page for the shooting count, based on CDC data.

The Brady Center, the best known nonprofit that is working to pass legislative fixes to issues such as the sale of semi-automatic weapons and closing loopholes that allow for guns sales without background checks, uses data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) (2008-09 estimates). It then makes an estimate of the number of killings a day that may not correspond to the most recent trends. The source data is captured by the CDC National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, reported and accessible through the web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System.

A lesson in how to silence public health researchers, and yes it is about the money

Slate’s professed shock at the lack of poor tracking of gun-related fatalities should actually surprise no one who has monitored the muzzling of research on gun-related violence since the 1990s by the National Rifle Association (NRA), the gun industry’s lobby, and its allies in Congress.

According to a newly published article by Dr. Arthur L. Kellermann and Dr. Frederick P. Rivara (both of whom have MPH degrees), in the Dec. 21, 2012, edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association, gun research at research universities that is funded by the federal government has been systematically quieted by pro-gun forces since a ban was enacted on the CDC in 1996, mainly through budget language. Pulling funding, in effect, silenced the nation’s public health agency on a critical public health issue.

The budget language, which remains in effect today, stated “none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control.” While it is not clear why individual CDC officials or even highly paid medical and public health professionals have not more publicly risked their professional standing to challenge this language, the authors of the study note, “Extramural support for firearm injury prevention research quickly dried up. Even today, 17 years after this legislative action, the CDC’s website lacks specific links to information about preventing firearm-related violence.”

Rivara and Kellermann further state that the language restricting such research was expanded after a 2009 study that was federally funded, this time by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, if a gun increases or reduces the risk of firearm assault. Congress, in 2011, during the Obama administration and amid the Tea Party insurgency of 2010, “extended the restrictive language it had previously applied to the CDC to all Department of Health and Human Services agencies, including the National Institutes of Health.”

The two authors highlight other efforts taking place national to stifle medical professionals from speaking out, such as Florida’s law (HB 155), which put health care practitioners at risk of penalties, including the loss of their licenses, “‘if they discuss or record information about firearm safety that a medical board later determines was not ‘relevant’ or was ‘unnecessarily harassing.'”

How silencing plays out at research universities, quietly and likely without intent

This blog has reported that the silence within the research community can be found at major public health research programs, such as the University of Washington School of Public Health, which  I attended from 2010 to 2012. I was unable to find any faculty actively teaching future public health leaders–my classmates–about firearms safety research or gun violence in the school’s public health curricula.

It should be noted Dr. Rivara is an adjunct faculty member of the UW School of Public Health, and Dr. Kellermann and he are also graduates of the same school (for their MPH degrees). Dr. Kellerman was in fact my graduation commencement speaker, and proved to be a passionate scientist and advocate to all of us. However, my review of courses did not reveal any classes focussing on gun violence as a public health issue; this does not mean Dr. Rivara and other faculty did not cover this topic in their classes. (It should also be noted that a keyword search for “guns” on the UW SPH web site today, Jan. 2, 2013, yielded only three pages, one focussing on Dr. Rivara and another focussing on Dr. Kellerman.)

During my studies there, I repeatedly raised this anomaly to my professors and during seminars in front of as many faculty as possible–often to the point of becoming an annoyance to those who had heard me ask the same questions repeatedly. But short of actually sitting in on faculty strategy sessions or having any survey data, it is impossible for me to know the reasons why my former school choose not to include this topic in its curricula. There were and remain classes on issues that do receive federal funding: tobacco cessation, obesity and nutrition, maternal and child health, and much more. All are worthy topics, but these were the winners, guns was a loser.

My guess remains it was purely a matter of funding, or lack of funding, and the intense internal pressure on junior faculty to pursue research dollars highly coveted by all departments that were not tied to this pariah topic. Thus the silencing of research continued, without any alarm bells raised from a larger community of researchers, who should be the most active and who should have been leaders, locally and nationally. That is how it works.

Dr. Rivara’s primary role is as a faculty member at the UW School of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics. To his credit, he has shown continued national leadership on gun violence. He and Dr. Kellerman deserve great praise for their lifelong service and work on this topic. Hopefully their article also will shame and embarrass their distinguished academic peers–locally and nationally–into either creating endowed teaching positions or a campaign drive to fund research that can shed light on this national public health crisis that has seized the nation’s attention since the massacre of 20 children and six faculty in a public school in Newtown, Conn. in December. MPH students also can lobby for change too, despite the hazards of confronting faculty who grade and often employ them as assistants.

Given that many faculty at these institutions can earn salaries well above $200,000 annually, some may be reluctant to jeopardize their professional careers or positions in the name of public-minded research on a topic that is at the center of one of the nation’s greatest moral debates since the Civil Rights movement and perhaps since the violent ending of slavery during the Civil War.

Gun researchers who have not been silenced by budget threats

Researchers not blocked by the ban on the CDC and NIH have shown that a prized policy goal of the NRA and gun makers, expanding “standing your ground laws,” have lead to more homicides.Researchers have found that states with a stand your ground law record more homicides than states without such laws.

Data from the study by Hoestra and Cheng, as published on the NPR.org web site (Jan. 2, 2013).
Data from the study by Hoekstra and Cheng, as published on the NPR.org web site (Jan. 2, 2013).

Two economics researchers at Texas A&M University, Mark Hoekstra and Cheng Cheng, found that the laws “do not deter burglary, robbery, or aggravated assault. In contrast, they lead to a statistically significant 8 percent net increase in the number of reported murders and non-negligent manslaughters.” The findings run counter to the argument of the primary proponent of such legislation, the NRA.

On average, there are about 500-700 more homicides a year among the 23 states with stand your ground laws because of these laws: “One possibility for the increase in homicide is that perhaps [in cases where] there would have been a fistfight … now, because of stand your ground laws, it’s possible that those escalate into something much more violent and lethal,” says Hoekstra.

2012 in review

Rudy OwensLeave a comment

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

So it's the end of the year, and time to pause and cheer. I took this one after a 120 mile trek in Peru in 1995. I had climbed a pass after a long, difficult climb. Nothing wrong with two hands promoting that dangerous idea called "peace." Happy new year all.
So it’s the end of the year, and time to pause and cheer. I took this one after a 120 mile trek in Peru in 1995. I had climbed a pass after a long, difficult trek. Nothing wrong with two hands promoting that dangerous idea called “peace.” Happy new year all.

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 4,200 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 7 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.

The Newtown massacre and musings on guns, morality, and public health

Rudy OwensLeave a comment

The brutal massacre of 20 young children and six public school employees in Newtown, Conn., on Dec. 14, brought to mind one of the greatest speeches in U.S. history, President Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address. On March 4, 1865, well into the fifth year of the bloodiest U.S. conflict, to resolve the criminal institution of slavery, Lincoln evoked unusually strong biblical and moral language that he normally avoided.

This FaceBook Post generated comments that said, this is why this country is so great and also why it is is so “f’d up” (https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=314047015290064&set=o.113895238664965&type=1&theater)
This facebook post generated comments that said, this is why this country is so great and also why it is so “f’d up” (https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=314047015290064&set=o.113895238664965&type=1&theater)

He first stated that the continuing expansion of slavery was the goal of the South. “All knew that [slavery] was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union … .” Then Lincoln, in language well understood by his countrymen, further noted the sins and injustice of slavery had brought the wrath of an Old Testament God upon the nation: “Fondly do we hope–fervently do we pray–that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether.”

A moral issue?

In short, Lincoln held his country morally accountable for that “peculiar institution.” He used moral language, much the way Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a century later, used similar language to address the injustices of discrimination and racism in the Jim Crow South and throughout the country. Such language by elected officials, however, has been mostly absent from the national debate over firearms violence that is involved in the death of more than 11,000 U.S. residents annually (homicides alone).

But the debate over the regulation or expansion of guns and automatic weaponry on the open market may have turned a page with Newtown shooter Adam Lanza’s killing spree. He used at least three guns (Glock 10 mm and a Sig Sauer 9 mm handguns and a Bushmaster .223-caliber) that were first obtained legally. He stole all of them from his well-to-do mother after killing her.

This Bushmaster .223, as of Dec. 16, was being advertised for sale on the Internet.
This Bushmaster .223, as of Dec. 16, was being advertised for sale on the Internet.

The availability of such lethal weaponry is far from an aberration. The Bushmaster .223 can easily be purchased now. Here’s one ad I found on Dec. 16; the weapon is described as intended for military combat.

In response to this mass murder of mostly kids, Peter Drier, professor of politics and chair of the Urban & Environmental Policy Department at Occidental College, posted a piece on Dec. 15, on the Alternet web site titled “The NRA’s Wayne LaPierre Has Blood on His Hands: The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence has a 62-page list of mass shootings in America since 2005. It is Wayne LaPierre’s resume.” Drier asserts that “the long list of killings is due in large measure to the political influence of the [National Rifle Association] NRA—and the campaign finance system that allows the gun lobby to exercise so much power.” In short, the NRA, the gun industry it lobbies for,  the NRA’s alleged 4 million members, and officials in elected office are all morally accountable for downstream effects of firearms proliferation.

Who is morally accountable for mass gun shootings like Newtown's? Just the shooter or weapons industry promoters like NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre,
Who is morally accountable for mass gun shootings like Newtown’s? Just the shooter or weapons industry promoters like NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre.

The NRA’s influence

The NRA, of course, alleges that the Second Amendment to the Bill of Rights gives individual Americans the right to possess guns, even combat weapons designed for the mass killing of people. The NRA also, in my opinion, falsely alleges that regulating gun sales and ownership is an attack on our constitutional freedoms–even our “civil rights.” Such language is devoid of both logic and rationality, and absent any moral foundation. I continue to find “literalist” interpretations of the U.S. Constitution, which also legitimized slavery for decades, as irrelevant to the complexities of a public health crisis that weapons-related violence has become in this country.

But, the NRA is more than a gun lobby. Its annual budget exceeds more than $250 million. It donates generously to political campaigns. It runs a non-profit foundation that boasts having raised $160 million. It runs a multimedia operation to promote its extremist views. It is, at the state level, aggressively promoting gun rights such as “stand your ground” laws. In the U.S. Senate, John Thune (R-S.D.) introduced a measure that would force all states that issue concealed carry permits to recognize the permits from other states. More importantly, the NRA promotes both the culture of weapons proliferation and a social media ecosystem that enables extremist views to proliferate, both inside its ecosystem and in the blogosphere, where many NRA talking points pepper the comments section of news stories on gun violence.

Using a public health lens to debate gun violence

In addition to embracing moral language, the national debate should also use a public health lens and the widely available data at all times to bury the completely false NRA propaganda that “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” For example, the Harvard School of Public Health’s Injury Injury Control Research Center examined peer-reviewed research and reported three main findings that point to the association between gun proliferation and homicides, including in the United States:

1. Where there are more guns there is more homicide.
2. Across high-income nations, more guns = more homicide.
3. Across states, more guns = more homicide.

A public health approach involves looking at the data, having a population focus (rather than focusing on the motives of a mentally disturbed killer), examining the policies and systems that enable guns to continue impacting the public’s health, and focusing on forces that develop dangerous personal behaviors—even the embracing of ideas that promote harmful activities such as owning guns. The conservative-leaning Seattle Times, which has not called for any legislative action to address firearms violence this past week (following two mass killings), pulled together some data from public sources on Dec. 15, regarding mass murders involving firearms (my comments in italics):

  • Shooting sprees are not rare in the United States.
  • Eleven of the 20 worst mass shootings in the past 50 years took place in the United States.
  • Of the 12 deadliest shootings in the United States, six have happened from 2007 onward.
  • America is an unusually violent country. But we’re not as violent as we used to be. (See the graph below.)
  • The South is the most violent region in the United States.
  • Gun ownership in the United States is declining overall. (However, we have more than 300 million guns in the U.S.–a staggering figure.)
  • States with stricter gun-control laws have fewer deaths from gun-related violence.
  • Gun control, in general, has not been politically popular. (This fact  overlooks how campaign funding impacts local and national races.)
  • But particular policies to control guns often are.
  • Shootings don’t tend to substantially affect views on gun control.
Duke University sociology professor Kieran Healy complied OECD data on violence in developed countries (excluding Estonia and Mexico) and concluded “America is a violent country.” Such data points to both a pathology toward violence and how aassults in the U.S. end up with lethal consequences (his data does not distinguish cause of death from say guns to knives.) Go to: http://www.kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2012/07/20/america-is-a-violent-country/
Duke University sociology professor Kieran Healy compiled OECD data on violence in developed countries (excluding Estonia and Mexico) and concluded “America is a violent country.” Such data points to both a pathology toward violence and how assaults in the U.S. end up with lethal consequences (his data do not distinguish cause of death from say guns to knives). Go to: http://www.kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2012/07/20/america-is-a-violent-country/

A 2003 study by EG Richardson and D Hemenway  (called “Homicide, suicide, and unintentional firearm fatality: comparing the United States with other high-income countries, 2003”) found that he United States has “far higher rates of firearm deaths-firearm homicides, firearm suicides, and unintentional firearm deaths compared with other high-income countries” and that the “United States is an outlier in terms of our overall homicide rate.”

Referencing this study, the Brady Campaign concludes that “the United States has more firearms per capita than the other countries, more handguns per capita, and has the most permissive gun control laws of all the countries.” The Brady Campaign further notes that “of the 23 countries studied, 80% of all firearm deaths occurred in the United States; 86% of women killed by firearms were U.S. women, and 87% of all children aged 0 to 14 killed by firearms were U.S. children.”

More blood from the sword … for the lash?

What remains to be seen is if the preponderance of data and the moral outrage that may have been generated by the Newtown shootings will create change.

President Obama, the day of the shootings, held a press conference and said, “We’re going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics.” Gun control advocate and billionaire New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg dismissed such talk immediately:  “Not enough,” Bloomberg said. “We have heard all the rhetoric before. What we have not seen is leadership — not from the White House and not from Congress. That must end today.” To date Obama has not used his office to promote any national legislation or even national dialogue on gun policy.

One thing is certain: there will be more mass murders in the United States involving legally obtained and legally sold firearms. And I am left paraphrasing Lincoln and wondering: how much more blood from such gun-related killings will have to be spilled to atone for our nation’s continued shortcomings to control what other developed nations have managed to do, and do for decades?

Taking the pulse–do exercise programs get kids in shape?

Rudy OwensLeave a comment

New York Times blogger Gretchen Reynolds, in her Oct. 3, 2012, piece, Do Exercise Programs Help Children Stay Fit?, profiled a recent British journal article that shows such weight-reducing and health-promoting efforts from the past two decades have flopped. (Scroll below to take a quick one-question pool on this very question.)

Citing the study published by Brad Metcalf and colleagues in the August 2012 edition of the journal BMJ (a journal accessible to all users), Reynolds reports that the authors found that “programs almost never increase overall daily physical activity. The youngsters run around during the intervention period, then remain stubbornly sedentary during the rest of the day.”

Two decades of interventions to help kids move more and weigh less may be failing.
Two decades of interventions to help kids move more and weigh less may be failing.

The British team of researchers from the Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry in England found 30 acceptable studies that met their criteria for examining if exercise interventions for kids work. The articles reviewed were published between January 1990 and March 2012. According to Reynolds, the programs simply failed to do what they were supposed to do: get young people to move more.

The article said their data covered 14,326 participants–6,153 with accelerometers that measured physical activity. The authors concluded that interventions “had only a small effect (approximately 4 minutes more walking or running per day) on children’s overall activity levels. This finding may explain, in part, why such interventions have had limited success in reducing the body mass index or body fat of children.”

An accompanying editorial  by Sally and Richard Greenhill notes that current United Kingdom guidelines state that all children and adolescents should have 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise a day. And in the United Kingdom, only a third of boys and a fifth of boys are meeting those guidelines. In the United States matters are worse, and kids’ levels of inactivity now ranks as harried parents’ No. 1 concern, according to an August 22, 2012, USA Today story. Yet, parents appear to be a big part of the problem, too, along with ubiquitous and highly, highly, highly addictive technology. Nearly six out of 10 children spend less than four days a week playing outside because “parents find it more convenient to spend time in front of a television or computer.”

Times writer/blogger Reynolds quoted Frank Booth, a professor of physiology at the University of Missouri-Columbia, who worked on the meta-analsysis in the BMJ: “So if structured classes and programs are not getting children to move more, what, if anything, can be done to increase physical activity in the young? It’s a really difficult problem.”

Such a finding begs the question: Do interventions to promote physical activity work, or are they a waste of time and resources?

Maine’s Efforts: Cutting Edge or a Good Idea Needing a Makeover?

The Let's Go program in Maine is one of many in the United States trying to get kids to exercise for an hour daily.
The Let’s Go program in Maine is one of many in the United States trying to get kids to exercise for an hour daily.

One influential program, that combines exercise with nutrition and is being duplicated across the country, is the Let’s Go! 5-2-1-0 program from Maine. This stands for:

5 – fruits and veggies,
2 – hours or less of recreational screen time,
1 – hour or more of physical activity, and
0 – sugary drinks, more water, and low-fat milk [editorial note, I find the promotion of milk as a drink for kids questionable, given the inordinate influence of big agri-business on the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the availability of other fortified, non-dairy drinks].

Let’s Go! founders claim the program is successful and is grounded in three principles: 1) changing environments and policies; 2) consistent messaging across sectors–like “5-2-1-0”; and 3) approaches that use science and are recommended by the medical community.

Places as diverse as Kentucky and Hawaii are attempting to duplicate this program, despite apparently non-conclusive evidence of its efficacy.

Maine launched the program in response to the obesity epidemic (as of 2005, more than 60% of all adults in Maine reported being either overweight and 36% of kindergarten students, 26% of 6th-8th graders, and 29% of 9th-12th grade youth were reported being overweight or at-risk for overweight).

According to the program’s own evaluation of its efficacy tackling issues such as weight, the prevalence of overweight and obesity among children decreased from 33% in 2006 to just 31% in 2009 and was not statistically significant. However, among females, between 3 and 5 years, a smaller proportion were overweight and obese in 2009 compared to 2006 (25% vs. 31%). In short, this confirmed the findings from the BMJ study.

But what do you think?