Yellow pants make me happy.

Preventing Human Trafficking: Young girls in our scholarship program from rural areas of Vietnam

Part 2 of my search on google for my future. I don't know why I hadn't thought about it before but today I searched for:

"Public health and human trafficking"

Public health tends to keep coming back into my life in different forms - the first time came in the form of me working as an assistant in the payroll office of UC Berkeley's public health department and I ended up majoring in it. When I was little I didn't know a thing about public health, instead I declared in the 2nd grade that I wanted to be a "story writer." Funny how I still do.

I'm going to also use my blog to capture my search for the best public health programs that fit into what I  want to do in the future. How I can gain access, capital, and leverage to catapult this issue into people's agenda's so it's no longer pushed aside as an issue that is not "pressing enough," human trafficking is a public health issue that affects us all whether we want to realize it or not, from the clothing we wear, from the images and notions our society produces about women, to the women in our own lives.

Here is a GREAT ARTICLE (in my book) - "In Fight to Prevent Abuse of Women and Children, Researchers expand focus to Include Human Trafficking" on the work of a Harvard professor and students and how public health interventions and research can be used towards the prevention of human trafficking. It's just beginning I feel it. Please have a go at it.


"The focus has not been on understanding the context, mechanisms, and logistics of sex trafficking, factors relating to people's vulnerability, or on programs to prevent people from being trafficked in the first place."


According to Silverman and Decker, the public health aspects of human trafficking typically are examined through the narrow lens of sex workers and HIV/AIDS transmission. Yet those studies do not capture the experiences of underaged sex "workers" - many of whom are trafficked - because they are not typically included in study samples. Younger girls, Silverman has learned, are typically moved or hidden within brothels to prevent detection and are almost never allowed to seek the types of services or participate in the types of programs from which public health studies are typically conducted. As a result, said Silverman, they have remained invisible to those reading the public health literature. 

And here is a good generalized three part article that was just written in the last few days (good timing!): Human Trafficking as a Public Health Crisis 

"... there are aspects of the [Public Health] model that fit well in this fight.  Public health is a unique field among the health professions.  There is a focus on populations rather than individuals and prevention rather than cure.  It is a scientific, evidence-based endeavor with a firm link to government and politics.  Additionally, outcomes of violence prevention initiatives benefit from a public health model, so it seems reasonable to extend this methodology to human trafficking."
Part 1
Part 2 
Part 3 

Two more to round it off! An article from the American Public Health Association: Health Care and Human Trafficking


Department of Health and Human Services: Common Health Issues seen in Victims of Human Trafficking

On another note, I'm frantically cleaning (and frantically blogging) since when I am stressed I tend to do so, to be more "productive" if you will. I also have yellow pants on that I bought yesterday at Saigon Square in the city, I love these yellow pants, they make me feel so good! It's like replaced coffee for me this morning. I have less than three months to perfect the GRE's (faint).