Why is the Topic Important?
6.6 million children never make it to their 5th birthday. Diarrhea and pneumonia are the leading killer of children. The things that kill them are not debilitating diseases like Ebola that are scaring people throughout the world. The leading killer of children are respiratory infections including SARS and cholera. However, even with Ebola, a key intervention is hand washing with soap. Hand washing with soap is one of the most cost-effective ways of saving lives. 600,000 people can be saved. You can stop 10 jumbo jets from crashing every day according to Myriam Sidibe, by using a bar of soap. This is why I chose this video.
How Does This Issue Affect Different Groups?
This video affects all age groups, although the author begins by talking about children. The author stated that 4 people out of 5 do not wash their hands globally. In countries where child mortality is high, there is soap available in 90 percent of households, yet people do not wash their hands. Even in countries where soap is the lowest, people are not washing their hands. So why are people not washing their hands? Soap is used for bathing and laundry, and for washing dishes. Parents may think it is a precious commodity, so it is not wasted, but people are not educated about how soap can help prevent disease. Thus, the result is that children pick up disease in places where they should be loved including in their homes. People are supposed to learn to wash their hands at home. It is hard to change habits that are learned very young.
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"The Simple Power of Hand Washing".
Do You Agree or Disagree?
The author states that people learn cultural habits early. People suggest that they learn cultural habits including how to wash from friends and family. Thus, if people talk about hand washing frequently, and if big businesses and brands talk about hand washing, then people are more likely to wash their hands. For example, the author suggests that big marketers transform science and facts into messages. The profit motive often transforms health motives. Thus, if big pharma would work toward encouraging people to wash their hands instead of simply marketing pharmaceuticals, then more people would wash their hands. This may be more and more important as diseases like Ebola begin to spread. This may be incredibly important as medicine fails, and as people look for simple solutions to a complex problem.
What Action Will You Take?
The first action I plan to take is to evaluate my own hand washing. It is simple enough to understand that hand washing eliminates colds. I think everyone knows this, but not many people actually do this. It is evident that we do not live I a culture that truly promotes hand washing. There are restaurants that have signs that say that all workers must wash their hands. But given the fact that there are E.Coli outbreaks each year, and many other outbreaks that occur from workers that have unclean hands, I think it is safe to say that there are many employees that do not wash their hands. And, if these employees have reminders to wash their hands, what does that say of the rest of the population that does not have reminders? If there were a serious outbreak of Ebola or another disease in the states, or in another populous develop region, then the circumstances may be such that a plague-like environment would develop. Thus, I would like to start an educational campaign, even by starting perhaps a blog that would promote safer hand washing practices. I think even just talking to people about what I learned will prove helpful in improving hand washing techniques, health and safety.
