Use Your Resources!

In preparation for visiting public health programs in country, Stuart Myers, Project HOPE’s Senior Vice President overseeing all global health programs, has initiated my educational journey with an array of extremely helpful and relevant resources on public health, chronic disease, and HOPE’s current programs. As he pointed out, this will also be a wonderful way to help me get back into the student mindset after a few years in consulting (Google only goes so far!). I also did some research on so called, “bibles” in the field and came up with a few good reads as well to best enable me to hit the ground running my first few weeks.

I’m including below a list of these resources (some of which may pop up later in more detail) and brief summaries of some of the most insightful primers.

Nudge

Richard Thayler and Cass Sunstein team up to describe how people make decisions (what factors influence them, what psychological thought processes prevail) and how these decisions impact health, wealth, and personal / collective happiness. They classify people in two categories: Econs, those thinking with a delayed-gratification or long-term economic lens, and Humans, i.e. everyone else. Two of the most powerful takeaways here are that (#1) you can influence how people make decisions without eliminating their choices and (#2) 90% of the battle is providing a good default. In examining everything from Medicare Part D, social security, and mortgages, they provide case after case that helps Humans everywhere learn the joys of choice architecture and being an Econ (fortunately I was trained by one for many years). My favorite example that demonstrates Point #1 is a representation of “shock design” – where a director of food services for a school system experimented whether placing healthy foods first made a difference as to what meals were purchased by students. Her experiment demonstrated a 25% increase in healthier foods then arranged first or at eye level compared to junk/snack/sweet foods. Unbelievable! Just a warning - the authors also take at least one chance (usually more) per chapter to take a jab at MBA graduates.

Taking Control of Your Diabetes

Dr. Steven Edelman, MD is an inspiring physician for patients and doctors everywhere and has lived with Type 1 diabetes for 39 years. His book Taking Control of Your Diabetes is a book to live by (literally) for anyone who has diabetes and takes a unique approach of motivating self-advocacy and personal ownership by tackling the physical and emotional issues of the disease. Please note, this book is also a great read! Not only does Dr. Edelman hope to empower people with diabetes everywhere to be their own best advocate, he embraces the “real” day-to-day challenges with a compassion and understanding that instills a patient-physician trust lacking in so many doctors offices. In addition to giving me an in-depth background on diabetes prevention and management (YES it is preventable!), this book has given me hope that we will have more physicians with the passion and determination of Dr. Edelman.

Rx for Survival

Philips Hilts starts out by giving us an eerie history of health threats to humankind as documented over time; the Bubonic Plague in the middle ages, the Spanish Flu early 20^th Century, and more recently the West Nile virus, Avian Flu, and HIV/AIDS prevalence today. Throughout his book he takes a journey to Nepal, India, and Botswana to illustrate examples of our public health needs globally, building a case for why investing now is so important. After sanitation and basic antibiotics extended the average human life from a life span of 25, to 40, to now the upper 70’s, he claims we are for the first time at risk for reversing that trend with a new generation of complex, massive epidemics. Global support for an investment in health interventions (many of which are simple vaccinations and treatments) he claims will save $200-500B annually in lost economic productivity and direct costs. Whether this is precisely accurate, it is clear that there is a large financial return for health investments in any country, and through his examples, low/middle income communities especially.

India Diabetes Educator Training Manual

Project HOPE’s joint partnership in developing a course on diabetes education in India with the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) has produced an extensive program and long-distance educational course that pairs traditional diabetes concepts with guidance on mentoring and cultural sensitivities critical to the success of the effort. Through this program, Project HOPE trains nurses and other healthcare professionals to educate, diagnose, and treat patients with diabetes in India. With a focus on prevention (nutrition, exercise, early diagnosis), this has been a very successful program to build capacity and diabetes diagnostic infrastructure in India. Interestingly, Indians (as well as other Asians) tend to develop Type II diabetes at a much lower BMI making them more susceptible to complications down the line (since they are less likely to heave received an early screening). Verbal and visual cues such as the “Zimbabwe hand jive” and behavioral-change models such as SMART goal setting focuses on empowering the individual to become a self-advocate for his/her personal health. We could use some of this in the US as well!

See a list of Project Resources used to date…

Dr. Edelman would agree that TCOYD is a great read!