– Sarah Busby –
As public health students, we know that our chosen field touches many aspects of life. There are so many facets of life that intersect with some or all areas of public health that it’s hard to imagine something that is completely irrelevant to a Rollins student. However, with six different programs for matriculating students to choose from, there are a variety of viewpoints that public health students can adopt. For instance, a Health Policy and Management (HPM) student may look at a topic such as sexual health education from a completely different perspective than a Behavioral, Social, and Health Education Sciences (BSHES) student would. Because of these different outlooks, it’s possible that two students from these different departments might disagree on this issue and any number of other topics. However, there are some things that we could definitively say that a public health student would never say. Some of these statements (and their rebuttals) are listed below.
“Universal healthcare would not solve any problems in America.”
You would be hard-pressed to find a public health student who agrees with this statement. Those who have taken an introductory HPM course can tell you that there is plenty of evidence to support the fact that healthcare access greatly improves health outcomes of all kinds across the board. We also know that access to care varies greatly among people of different socioeconomic statuses, races and ethnicities, and gender and sexual orientations, making access to care an issue of structural and institutional bias. Eliminating these discrepancies by improving access to care for everyone would go a long way toward improving health outcomes for everyone.
“I think it’s totally fine to ignore vaccination guidelines and rely solely on natural immunity.”
Humans have faced several pandemics all over the world throughout history, including the recent COVID-19 pandemic which began only a few years ago. Those who have kept track of highly contagious infectious diseases will tell you that vaccinations are a crucial part of infectious disease control and prevention. In fact, we’ve recently seen the consequences of a lapse in vaccination coverage – with the measles outbreak in California in 2014 and the detection of polio in wastewater in New York in 2022, several examples of what could happen if vaccines weren’t available serve to remind us of the importance of protecting kids and adults from dangerous viruses and bacteria.
“Climate change isn’t real, and it can’t hurt me.”
Climate change is a very real truth by which everyone is affected. Perhaps we are not affected by climate change as strongly as individuals in areas of the world which experience more pollution, but we can still see the effects, including warmer temperatures, more powerful storms, and the slow creep of pests carrying infectious diseases. These effects touch everyone, regardless of where you live. As time goes on, the mountain of evidence supporting this truth increases, such as yearly temperature averages increasing and rising water levels. Environmental Health (EH) students would be happy to have a conversation with those who believe otherwise!
“I think that statistical significance is the most important thing I need to worry about. If the math doesn’t support the hypothesis, then obviously it’s wrong.”
This is definitely not the case! Biostatistics students can tell you that there is more to a study than a p-value. Statistics is an important tool in the arsenal of a public health researcher, but it is not the final determining factor of whether or not a hypothesis can be proven. We know that many things influence p-values in our studies, including sample size and the level of confidence with which we want to interpret our findings. Having a low p-value doesn’t prove a researcher wrong; however, it does indicate that more research is needed before we definitively say that a certain exposure leads to an outcome. Conversely, a statistically significant p-value does not mean that A causes B. As future public health practitioners, we must be cautious when making interpretations, but we can produce work that will inform important decisions and recommendations by other public health professionals!
Conclusion
There are many things that public health students would never say, including the notion that you may not have an opinion on any current or future issue that you encounter. Chances are you are an outspoken advocate for public health issues, and you probably disagree with the statements made above. If so, you’ll be among an entire cohort of like-minded individuals if you come to Rollins!
Rollins Student Ambassadors 