STUDENT 1(black):

Q: What do you think are the top three most important issues in health and medicine in the United States today? What are some data you can find to show the importance of these three issues, and what groups of people do these issues affect most?

A:The top health concerns in the U.S. today depend on what avenue of health comes into question. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) released a Prevention Status Report with the top health concerns in the United States:

• Alcohol-related harms
• Food safety
• Healthcare-associated infections
• Heart disease and stroke
• HIV
• Motor vehicle injury
• Nutrition, physical activity and obesity
• Prescription drug overdose
• Teen pregnancy
• Tobacco use (Barnet, 2016).

On the other hand, Binder’s (2013) article describes another aspect of healthcare issues not of the pathological nature, but in a practical nature:

• Too much unnecessary care
• Avoidable harm to patients
• Billions of dollars wasted
• Incentives is how care is paid for
• Poor transparency

These various issues effect wide groups of people. For instance, alcohol related deaths affect more than twice the amount of men compared to women (National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, 2017). Likewise, HIV is most likely to affect the African American and homosexual or bisexual men (CDC, 2017). Examples of issues pertaining to avoidable harm to patients can include elective early-term deliveries (Binder, 2013). Elective early-term deliveries are widely recognized as being harmful both mothers and babies for the variety of complications that can occur from a medically unnecessary procedure (Jenson, White, & Coddington, 2013).

I believe that out of all of these issues the main ones pertain to heart disease and stroke, alcohol-related deaths, and obesity. The CDC (2016) found that heart disease and stroke were in the top five potentially preventable causes of death (Garcia et al., 2016). In 2014, the United States saw over 100,000 deaths related to the two causes alone (Garcia et al., 2016).

References

Barnet, S. (2016). CDC: 10 most important public health problems and concerns. Retrieved from http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/population-health/cdc-10-most-important-public-health-problems-and-concerns.html

Binder, L. (2013). The five biggest problems in health care today. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/leahbinder/2013/02/21/the-five-biggest-problems-in-health-care-today/#3e48352e4587

García, M. C., Bastian, B., Rossen, L. M., Anderson, R., Miniño, A., Yoon, P. W., & … Hong, Y. (2016). Potentially preventable deaths among the five leading causes of death – United States, 2010 and 2014. MMWR: Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Report, 65(45), 1245-1255. doi:10.15585/mmwr.mm6545a1

CDC. (2017). HIV among African Americans. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/group/racialethnic/africanamericans/

Jensen, J. R., White, W. M., & Coddington, C. C. (2013). Maternal and neonatal complications of elective early-term deliveries. Mayo Clinic Proceedings, 88(11), 1312.

National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. (2017). Alcohol facts and statistics. Retrieved from https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/overview-alcohol-consumption/alcohol-facts-and-statistics

STUDENT 2 ( Sabrina ):

Q: In what ways does the presence of the mass media influence our perception of social problems in society today? How is this different than it was in the past? Illustrate with an example of a social problem that has been shaped by media.

A: Mass media effects societies views of social problems in many ways, but for most its just one good way. Norms, media sets up a societal norm as in posting pictures of models in magazines and girls see that-that is acceptable. Rich people all over the internet shows us that while being rich is such a nice and lavish thing, what about those of us who are not rich? Where do we fit in. No to mention if you are a student in high school and below and do not carry around the latest models of technology. Media creates a communication barrier, and this kids raised off that do not have proper socializing skills because they hide through social media and their phones. Mass media influences social problems by only showing the ones that are money makers for their brand, not social issues that society actually needs to work on fixing. Back in the day, when the printing press arrived in Boston, it was used to put out religion and government. Now its to expose celebrities life, and make sure everyone wearing the next best overly expensive clothes. Certain types of media can also bring people together, like the super bowl, and seasonal parades that are broad casted. Not all media is bad. Without media, the modern day person will not be in tune with what is going on around them, at the time it is all happening. The world is ever growing, and electronics and media are just growing with it to.

There is no one example where media has shaped a social problem. Media is a source for information, so everything exposed on the internet or other outlets of media are fair game to society to exploit even further. One example i can give is Facebook. Lately on Facebook I’ve been seeing people post videos of people doing random acts of kindness to people they don’t even know and then the person it happened to wants to figure out who it is to thank them, or repay them. That is certainly a positive side to exploiting things that are happening.