New Haven has the prototypical New England charisma - old-world brick houses, a sustained autumn landscape, time-worn academic atmosphere. Finally here at Yale University, New Haven seems like the perfect setting for an exploration into Global Health by attending the 2011 Unite for Sight Global Health and Innovation conference. I feel as though my foray into global public health is certainly premature, but that attending this conference that I wanted for almost a year - I am finally where I want to be or anyone who has the slightest inkling to impact the world in a myriad of ways.
I am here with two of my esteemed colleagues, who absolutely respect given their amazing work and scholarship in public health in both the global-scale, nationally, and locally in Chicago. All of us have come to Yale, wide-eyed and full of hope that we walk away from this conference better educated, connected, and motivated in our prospective work. Public health is undoubtedly a difficult discipline to be established in, but when you expand your community beyond your own physical boundaries - the chances of making an impact and establishing yourself become far greater - at least to me.
So why such a long name for this blog? I could not think of anything more straight-forward and wanted to avoid any 'kitchy' monikers or acronyms that exude nausea - something one of my colleagues had talked about earlier. Rather, my goal is to be explicitly interdisciplinary - as I reflect on the sheer number of individuals I have interacted in my lifetime that dabbled or immersed themselves in public & global health. Separating the two from each other seems almost contradictory - as globalization continues at a logarithmic rate, the two terms cannot be distinct, but rather we have become more of a 'globalized public'. We face common issues related to poverty, suffer the same against disease, torn by conflicts & disaster, share the same water, food, happiness, and sadness. We are a global public.
With that being said, global health, social justice, and human rights are inextricably interlinked and tied together in a way that the venn diagrams shift, overlap, and move together - effecting each other in powerful ways. The consideration of these relationships requires that all these issues are addressed as one, or at least you directly or indirectly find yourself tackling a global health problem, that requires an in-depth consideration of social determinants of health, eventually leading to what we hope is a human right to health.
I have always struggled to be focused on one area of public health or even a discipline. As I have grown more, I realize more than ever that while I might not be able to make an impact at the global scale that I envision - I can at the very least contribute a small piece of global impact & change alongside my colleagues, friends, and family. I sit here today at Linsley-Chittenden Hall at Yale University, New Haven - in a haven of sorts to finally learn and grow as a public health practitioner, journalist, and wherever my future takes me.
In good (public) health,
Surajkumar Madoori
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