how to use national environment public health tracking network

   Today's blog is about how to use CDC public health tracking network. It has all the basic information about health and environment. There are six major parts on the website: environments, health effects, population health. explore tracking data, info by location and state and local tracking programs. I want to introduce two parts: one is health effects and the other is info by location.

   When I introduce you the health effects, I want to take Asthma for example. After you click in the health effects, it gives you a general information like what is Asthma; what can cause Asthma and how you can prevent getting Asthma. If you or any of your family members are suffering from some common diseases, you can search the disease and read the specific page about this disease. Read the page to start a health lifestyle to prevent and to lower the risk.

   The info by location page is useful for everyone live in this country. It's very easy to find information  about health and general information in your area. For example, I typed Athens, Ohio, it gives me a lot information about this area. Such as the number of people are living below the poverty line in Athens is doubled compared with state of Ohio; 60% of people in Athens are under age 34 and the race information. The PM 2.5(what is PM2.5) is lower compared with national average and it's only 11.1 ug. We also can know the smoking percentage at state of Ohio is five percent higher than national. This page gives most people a basic health information about this area. For people who want to move to another city, check this website and compare with their current living place will be a good idea.

   Getting to know the common diseases and getting to know the environment around you start from CDC public health.



 This is a picture took in Beijing, China. The air pollution is a  serious issue in China right now. It causes lots of lung and breathe problems.



I started smoke after 18, It has been years. But I know smoking is bad for health. I am trying to quit smoking.

Current annual report for American Association of poison control centers

   I read through the three parts: age and gender distributions, reason for exposure, route of exposure and their data table on page 979 at AAPCC(American Association of poison control centers) 2014 current annual report. 


   The first part is age and gender distributions, we noticed that 47.7% of children who under the age of six are affected by poison. Seeing this 47.7% of children as one group, nearly 70% of children from that group are under the age of three; this group of children are infant and don't have much cognitive ability. They are easily to eat toxic food when their parents are not around. From the evidences above, we can see that there are so many toxic chemicals in our daily life. Also, boys are more active than girls so they are more easily get toxic chemicals than girls. 


   The second part is reason for exposure. It indicates that 79.4% of exposure are unintentional, still provides the evidence that there are so many toxic substances around our life. The therapeutic error and misuse also play a big part in it, the therapeutic error takes 12.6 and the medicine misuse takes 5.8%.  Although the rate is not very high but it still affect hundreds of thousands individuals, so it's still a big problem. But there are some thing we can do to prevent it from happening. Such as create a comprehensive medical file; FDA can also apply a more strict rule to control drugs. 

   The last part is route  of exposure. We can see 83.74% of route of exposure are ingestion, so food safety is the biggest issue that we should focus on. Water pollution and farm chemicals caused I can't eat a cucumber without cleaning it, but how can I know the water I used to clean the cucumber is pure and clean? Dermal and inhalation take the next  two big parts because of chemical fabrics and air pollution. 


   All in all, human body is very fragile. After the industrialization there are millions of new chemicals and antibiotics appear and human take millions years to evolve and adapt the environment. We may can't experience things like 1800s London pollution again, but we are facing  new environment challenges and new chemicals more than ever before. Any chemicals should serve one propose that to make a better life and a better world for human without harming human.





I searched "water pollution" on google and I find this picture. We can see the beautiful background in this picture, but the pollution on the beach gets more attention. It is a strong warning to us that we need protect the environment intermediately. 

It is the refrigerator in my apartment, I put all the food I bought into the refrigerator. Since the food safety is the biggest issue, I am worried about if I eat the poisoned food. The government should tack action for food safety. 

Week 1 blog topic:Heuristics

   The word "heuristics" by definition is a way that people using their experience or "common sense" to learn and improve. It exists in our daily life's every decision making more that our thinking. We are facing hundreds of choices every day, such as when to get up in case late for classes; What kind of food to eat today; which TV show to watch tonight. And heuristics can affect every situations I just mentioned.


   There are three types of heuristics: availability heuristics, representativeness heuristics, and base-rate heuristics. These three kinds of heuristics have some differences in psychology field. An example for availability heuristics, people always think violent crime plays a big part in all kinds of crime, but the truth is there are less than 12% of crime involves violence. 

   If someone tells you his father is an engineer, sits at office all day and always work late, you may start to picturing a mid-age man probably wear glasses and with little hair, also he could be a little bit fat because he lacks of exercises. That's a representativeness heuristic. It's similar to stereotypes. Sometimes, representativeness heuristic can be very helpful for providing a picture in our brain, the picture could have many useful information about the person or the situation we are about to meet.

   The last one is base-rate heuristic which helps us make decisions base on probability. For instance, if you hear a lion roaring next to your door, you will think maybe your neighbors are watching a movie right now instead of thinking there is actually a lion next door to you. Also, it's based on your common sense. According to your information, it's forbidden to raise a lion privately and it may not be that easy for a lion to escape from the zoo.

 This picture tells us, our brain receives lots of information everyday, we may not realize but these information are influence us when we are making decisions. I chose this picture because it can well-explained how much our brain involves. When we are making decisions, our brain is like a machine, and each part plays it role.

This picture I took at home is a example of rate-base heuristic. Every time we order him to sit down, we always has a snack on our hand, now he doesn't need the order. As long as he see a snack, he will sit down.