Skydiving

The day had finally arrived when Todd, Alex, Anthony, Russel and myself headed out to the DC Skydiving Center.  The idea of skydiving was the brainchild of Alex, who wanted to go for his 21st birthday.  Things got busy, the price was a bit high and there were not enough people interested for the idea to take flight.  A few months ago, and four years later, LivingSocial had a deal so the five of us decided to take advantage of the 50% discount and take the plunge, so to speak.

While I had been nervous two weeks before (our original jump was canceled due to bad weather), I was fairly calm and collected before we headed off.  After checking in, I met my skydiving instructor who was a crazy Serbian who has been jumping for the past 20 years.  Thankfully the plane fit five so we were all able to go up together.   One by one people started falling out of the plane - I was second to last.

Most jumps are done at 3500 meters or 11,500 feet, but due to some planes in the area we had to keep climbing.  We finally leveled out at 4000 meters or just over 13,000 which is the highest altitude we would be able to jump at with the equipment we had on board.  For those of you who actually pay attention to the safety spiel before a plane takes off, at this height the oxygen masks would fall from the ceiling.

The height meant that we had 45 seconds drop until the parachute opened and we gracefully floated back down to the grassy runway.  The view definitely did not disappoint and the weather could not have been better.  I was surprised how little of an adrenaline rush I had by the time I landed which was something that I did not expect.  All five of us made it back in one piece with three of the guys taking home videos of their descent.

With landing in one piece I have crossed another thing off my 30 Before 30 list which means that I have 14 to go.  Three more will be crossed off by the time I arrive back to the East coast in August.

Runamuck!

It is again that time of year for everyone's favorite 5k run, Runamuck.  This year the crew headed over on a cold and overcast morning, but even the dreary weather would not keep them back from a morning playing in the mud.  As we boarded the school bus from Shady Grove, which could possibly be considered on the other side of the planet, we became a bit concerned when many of the runners were looking impossibly clean.  One area which had been filled with mud last year was now a small river we had to swim through. 

The ever important before picture.  This year we went as condaments so from left to right: mustard, ketchup, pepper, salt, sriracha, mayonaise, duck sauce and low sodium soy sauce.  

See how clean we were before jumping into the last mud puddle?

And the after shot.  

The one good thing about it being less muddy is that clean-up was slightly easier.

Dolla Dolla Bills!

Since I have been spending some time in DC, I thought that I would share this with you!

Could You Imagine?

Could you imagine if you were out camping and one of your friends showed up with this sleeping bag?

Happy Friday!

Not Exactly a 46 Week Interview

Today is the day - my last day as an AmeriCorps volunteer.  While my term did not last 46 weeks as I first talked about back in September, it was definitely an interesting ride. 

Over the last nine months:

• Completed over 500 blood pressure screenings
• Had 422 client interactions for the dental clinic
• Held 14 mostly successful health education classes which reached 119 people
• Met 17 like minded adults who have a passion about giving back to their community
• Gained a better understanding about the health care system in the United States and the implications not having insurance has for millions of Americans
• Crossed several things off my 30 Before 30 List (15 down and 15 to go - two more to be crossed off this summer)
• Conquered 1 city with the most insane grid layout I have EVER encountered

Life here in Pittsburgh is slowly coming to an end as I do some last minute cramming for my entrance exams for school and prepare for my cross country bike ride.  I also have a couple more touristy things to cross off my bucket list, after a quick trip to DC, so don't take me off your google reader just yet.

Food Waste

A friend of a friend posted an article, Garbage: A Costly American Addiction.  In it, there was a great visual on food waste, and how it has become a major world wide problem.  

Mental Illness Tied to Higher Rates of Physical Ailments

Last Friday, SAMHSA posted a report which showed that adults with a mental illness are more likely to have certain chronic physical health problems compared to those with a mental illness.  Here is a quick rundown of the numbers:

• High blood pressure: 24 percent vs. 20 percent
• Asthma: 17 percent vs. 11 percent
• Diabetes: 9 percent vs. 7 percent
• Heart disease: 7 percent vs. 5 percent
• Stroke: 3 percent vs. 1 percent

The use of the emergency department, as well as hospitalization rates were also higher, 48 percent vs. 31 percent and 20 percent vs. less than 12 percent respectively. 

"Behavioral health is essential to health. This is a key SAMHSA message and is underscored by this data," SAMHSA administrator Pamela Hyde said in an agency news release.  "Promoting health and wellness for individuals, families and communities means treating behavioral health needs with the same commitment and vigor as any other physical health condition," Hyde said. "Communities, families and individuals cannot achieve health without addressing behavioral health."

The Case for Investing in Youth Health Literacy: One Step on the Path to Achieving Health Equity for Adolescents

Health literacy was a topic I was introduced to during graduate school.  Many of my undergraduate classes touched on literacy levels, and I had always assumed that literacy and health literacy could be compared.  Well let me tell you folks, I was DEAD wrong. 

One of the videos we watched asked a senior citizen, hypertensive patient, if he knew what hypertension was and why the doctor had given him a prescription to help him manage his hypertension.  The man's guessed he was really hyper and the doctor was giving him this medication to help calm him down.  As soon as I heard this, bells and whistles started going off in my head.  This past fall I was watching a movie at a conference and this time an extremely intelligent, aerospace engineer (no joke) also admitted that most of the time he did not know what his doctor was talking about after he had had heart surgery.  I think that this man was picked specifically for his background and to prove a point.  Just because a person has gone to school and/or has been diagnosed for many years does not mean that they understand their condition. 

Many of the medical terms we use on a daily basis, and many many more that are used by health care practitioners, are not understood by the average American.  This of course is no fault of their own.  Instead of health care providers educating patients on their disease and medication regiment, people are left wondering/guessing or might be so inclined to do their own research online which can be a good or bad thing.  A great suggestion which came from one of the nurses was not only to tell a patient about what disease they were recently diagnosed with, but also to write it down.  This way when they go see another doctor they don't have to try and guess at what disease they have or accidently inform the health care provider they have a different diseaese. 

Recently NIHCM came out with an article that looked at improving health literacy among youth populations, especially in today's day and age where information is literally at their fingertips.  Youth should be targeted because this is when they begin to gain some independence and start making decisions on their own.  Similarly, this "may be the first time that individuals begin to think about how their identity affects their lives."  It is a long article, but can easily be skimmed thanks to the bolded titles. 

Cycle of Poverty in PGH

I few weeks ago I bookmarked an article in the Huffington Post and finally sat down to read it in its entirety.  There were a lot of great things in the article, so I decided to pull out a few relevant quotes. 

For many young people born into the cyclic deprivations of urban poverty -- failing schools, broken families, lack of jobs, violence, crime and drugs -- such lessons come far too late in life.

 _____

A cleaning job has recently become available at a hotel near the airport, and Davis is hopeful that it will work out. But the commute to and fro will take six buses, two hours, and $5.50 out of his pocket each day -- money that he doesn't have at the moment.

Hill House will help with the fare until he gets his first paycheck, but the minimum-wage job won't be enough to cover his bills, and the area transit authority has targeted one of the bus routes for a service reduction. Without a car, he'll likely lose the job in a few months' time.

This part of the article described the situation that many of our clients must deal with every day.  They are happy to finally have work, but due to time constraints, bus schedules and rising public transportation costs, many are not able to keep the minimum wage jobs. 

 _____

A full 6.7 percent of Americans, or roughly 20.5 million people, were earning less than half the official poverty rate -- a category generally known as "extreme poverty."  This amounts to almost 1 in every 10 children falling into the extreme poverty category. 

 _____

“Very poor neighborhoods face a whole host of challenges that come from concentrated disadvantage -- from higher crime rates and poorer health outcomes to lower-quality educational opportunities and weaker job networks," writes Brookings researcher Elizabeth Kneebone and her co-authors in a report issued last fall. "A poor person or family in a very poor neighborhood must then deal not only with the challenges of individual poverty, but also with the added burdens that stem from the place in which they live.”

 _____

The metrics showed that while median household income was $20,721 -- compared to the median household income of $36,019 for the city as a whole -- 34 percent of Hill District households earned less than $10,000 annually. About 40 percent of the population is below the poverty line.

Salad Days

A great picture from the upcoming Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC. 

An Rx for Your Hamburger

Several news sources broke the news today that livestock will need to have a prescription before farmers can administer any antibiotics. 

Before Wednesday, antibiotics were routinely mixed in with animal feed as preventative measures to put weight on livestock, pigs and chickens, as well as insure that they would stay healthy in over crowded barns.  Public health and medial officials have long been worried that the increased use of medications has helped to the growth and surge of antibiotic resistant germs, some of which can be passed on to humans.  Over the past few years there has been an increased number of more resistant and deadlyforms of malaria, staph and several other infections which once were easily treatable.  (This is one of the reasons why several national and international campaigns were started to help educate physicians on the harm of over perscribing antibiotics). 

The FDA guidelines recommend that antibiotics be used only when necessary to keep animals healthy and the veterinarian should also prescribe the specific medication.  The FDA also is working with with drug companies to adjust the labels of antibiotics; labels will no longer advertise to increased weight gain and accelerated growth.  No formal ban was put into place because each drug would have to undergo its own hearing which would take years to complete.  Lawmakers are hoping that the voluntary requirements will bring about a greater change and cost taxpayers less money. 

Apparently in 1977 a law was passed that banned the non-medical use of two popular antibiotics, penicillin and tetracycline in farm animals.  Unfortunately, the law was never really enforced because there was push back from Congress and drug/farmer lobby groups.  Last month a federal court judge ordered the FDA to uphold the law. 

List of Common Misconceptions

 Get ready for your mind to be blown this Friday afternoon.  Wikipedia has a page of common misconceptions, and as we all know whatever we see on Wikipedia has to be true.  Here are some of my favorites:

• There is no evidence that iron maidens were invented in the Middle Ages or even used for torture. Instead they were pieced together in the 18th century from several artifacts found in museums in order to create spectacular objects intended for (commercial) exhibition
• Marie Antoinette did not actually use the phrase "let them eat cake" when she heard that the French peasantry was starving due to a shortage of bread.  
• George Washington did not have wooden teeth; the dentures were made of gold, hippopotamus ivory, lead, and human and animal teeth (including horse and donkey teeth)
• George Washington Carver did not invent peanut butter, though he reputedly discovered three hundred uses for peanuts and hundreds more for soybeans, pecans, and sweet potatoes.