Swasthyam International Symposium

June 1st-2nd, 2023

PHRII and JSS came together to create this symposium with the theme of public health, healthy living, and sustainable development goals. I attended this symposium to further my understanding of public health issues in India and to learn more about how we can achieve the sustainable development goals across the world. Written in this blog are the main takeaways I took from this symposium.

Pan-African Spirituality and Well-Being

Pan-Afrikan is a mode of thinking that we should all be unified and that people of the Afrikan diaspora have a great deal in common. The Afrikan diaspora describes the mass dispersion of peoples from Afrika or, in other words, the kidnapping of Afrikans and their displacement to other countries. Although manky Afrikans moved around the globe forcefully, a lot of their beliefs and customs were sustained. Afrocentricity is the attitude that promotes the well-being of people with Afrikan descent. Spirituality is a fundamental part of this as man is spirit of the highest form of life. We are spirits first. Some definitions mentioned were:

• Ma'at: The principle that governs the dynamic functioning of the universe and refers to balance and cosmic order.

• Maafa: The enslavement of Afrikans by Europeans.

• Veneration: Assumes value of all living beings.

• Spiritness: A concept whose meaning is to be full of life.

• Human Authenticity: The condition of being sincere and being who you are meant to be

• Inclusive Metaphysical Epistemology: Refers to the use of both affective and cognitive synthese of info as a way of knowing

• Ubuntu: Means my humanity is intricately connected to your humanity, my life is connected to yours. I am because you are. I don't exist if you don't exist.

• Orishas: Smaller deities that protect us.

• Pan-Afrikan Movement: A movement dedicated to establishing the independence of Afrikan people

After the enslavement and displacement of Afrikan people, Catholicism influenced many enslaved individuals in Cuba and Brazil. Yoruban religion incorporated many Catholic stuctures. One practice that came out of it was Santeria, popular in Cuba. Many of the original "orishas" of this religions are identified with individual Catholic saints in Santeria. In the Afrikan disapora, Yoruban religion is a way of being. It is the belief in ancestors. It is the belief in magic and medicine. It is believed that the soul is immortal and there is little concern with the afterlife because it is known that we will return if necessary. There is also a focus on communalism and provides a moral code for people as morality is important in this religion.

Religion, faith, and spirituality is important to the Afrikan diaspora. Afrikan Americans report that in times of strength, faith is needed for them to get by. Spirituality benefits us by helping us cope with stress and substance abuse. Total spiritual well-being and religious and existential well-being of an Afrikan person predicts their total psychological well-being. That is because the spirit is an important part of who people of the Afrikan diaspora are. In order to support and better the lives of people from the Afrikan diaspora, spirituality and faith must be intertwined with the interventions.

School-based interventions for children with Asthma

Asthma is a chronic condition that produces sudden episodes of breathing issues. There currently is no cure for asthma, but treatment can reduce impairment and risk of asthma attacks. One of the populations that is at risk for asthma attacks are children. Children usually spend a lot of time in schools and schools are supportive and important environments for the delivery of health interventions. The greatest number of asthma attacks happen during the children's schooling because it is seasonal. Schools can help lower these numbers by identifying asthmatic students, monitoring symptoms, providing education, reducing exposures, and managing symptoms. It is not recommended schools conduct a school-wide screening of asthma because few children are undiagnosed and the ones who are undiagnosed have a mild form of the disease. Instead, schools should ask parents to report an asthma diagnosis and monitor those students who have it. Schools should also be providing asthma education, which the American Lung Association makes easy since they offer standardized educational programs on their website.

Inhaled steroid therapy reduces pediatric morbidity rates and hospitalizations by 50%. However, few patients take these medications as recommended. A solution to this is promoting self-management. Asthma self-management refers to things you can do for yourself to keep asthma in control. School based self-management interventions reduce the frequency of asthma symptoms and can help students reduce their chances of hospitalization and death. Schools can also help provide these inhaled steroids to reduce symptoms as well. Schools should have stock inhalers that could be used in emergencies in the case that a student forgot theirs or does not have one. Additionally, there needs to be at least one registered nurse in schools as every dollar spent on school nurses saves society two. Schools are important key players that could help reduce the burden of asthma in children and should take these measures seriously as it could be the different between life and death.

Maternal-Child Health Interventions with a Focus on infectious diseases and maternal care

The United States maternal mortality ratio is increasing. The worst maternal mortality rates are in South Sudan, Chad, and Sierra Leone with 1000 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. The main cause of maternal mortality is hemorrhage, hypertension, and anemia and the majority of "near miss" deaths were due to hypertension and hemorrhage. Because these are preventable, we need to focus on maternal deaths. We need to have review groups of these deaths, these deaths need to be monitored, and what's preventable needs to be addressed.

The key time to prevent maternal mortality is in intrapartum care. Countries who have mandates and systems in place to ensure safe deliveries have the least maternal mortality. Most maternal deaths occur during labor, delivery, and within 24 hours of live birth. These women having access to care and expertise affects the outcomes of their delivery. Additionally, education can also reduce mortality rates. The four pillars to focus on when it comes to maternal and newborn health are: family planning, antenatal care, safe labor and delivery, and postpartum care.

Furthermore, infant mortality remains high in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Children face the greatest risk of death in their first 28 days of life. The top cause of infant mortality is infections, birth defects, intrapartum complications, and nutrition. Preterm birth mortality is caused mostly by inflammation, infection, and micronutrient deficiencies. Sexually transmitted diseases (STIs) are strongly associated with preterm delivery. However, there are some interventions that can help. They call is the Triple A Intervention for preterm birth prevention. This intervention includes: Aspirin for anti-inflammation, Azithromycin for bacterial infections, and antenatal micronutrients for supplementation. All three "As" help to reduce what causes preterm birth to begin with. These interventions can be easily implemented, but nothing can happen without political will. In order to reduce maternal and child mortality, governments must be committed.

Acceptability and Feasibility of Inspiratory Muscle Strength Training for Improved Balance and Cognition in Middle-aged and Older People in Mysore, India

China currently has the largest number of elderly people, but very soon it will be India. Aging is a problem around the globe, but we can slow it, reduce it, and fundamentally reverse it at the cellular level. We have many ways of determining someone's biological age at the cellular level. One is through telomeres. Over our life span, our telomeres get shorter and shorter, so by checking the length of the ends of chromosomes, we can determine our biological age. Additionally, DNA can make mistakes when it replicates and over time it makes more and more mistakes. We can take a look at how old someone is by seeing how many "mistakes" they have. Another way to look at aging is through the quality of proteins a person has as older people have more broken down proteins through the loss of proteostasis. Mitochondrial dysfunction also informs age as antibodies replace mitochondria which slows down over time.

Our potential for aging is 150 years. There have been many cases where people have lived well over our 80 year average of life. The one thing they had in common was exercise. If you exercise, you can live longer. However, not every exercise would be useful to prevent aging. The best kind of exercise you could do if you want to slow your aging is aerobic exercise. This kind of exercise extends your life and reverses the hallmarks of aging, mentioned in the previous paragraph. Unfortunately, not many older people exercise because of "time", "injuries", "dizziness", and other problems associated with getting older. An IMST breath trainer can help older people with these symptoms so they can exercise thus bettering their health and reversing aging. The IMST breath device is powerful tool that could potential help older people exercise to stop aging and will prove useful to slowing a global problem.

Gender bias in Leadership Roles

As a bonus, the symposium also held debates. One of the debates that stuck out with me was "gender bias in leadership roles". In the States, it is widely known that there is gender bias and that sexism still prevails in modern day society as women still get paid less, still take longer to get the same jobs men do, and still have to work ten times harder than a man to achieve the same as he has. But nowadays, it's not only women who face these hardships. The transgender community also have a rough time finding jobs, getting paid equitably, and achieving their goals. It seemed a little silly to me that they would argue if a gender bias exist when it clearly does, especially since the Hijra community, a one highly regarded class of women assigned male at birth, are oppressed and often resort to asking for money in the streets. I was just astounded that this debate was even allowed, but it told me where India lied on the spectrum of gender justice rights. Women's rights in India aren't as progressive. Although the States has A LOT of work to do when it comes to gender justice, we still are able to acknowledge that exists. India has not even reached that point yet and these debates, although silly as they may be to me, are important to address these issues. Hopefully, the debate resonated with the crowd as the gender bias team outlined important points of discussion pointing towards the existence of gender bias. And maybe through these discussions, India will improve women's and gender minority's rights one debate at a time.