Today we walked to the south campus and began with a lecture on public health in the UK by Dr. Sara Zarti. Public health is preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting health through organized efforts of society. Health specifically includes your physical, mental, and social wellbeing. Public health promotes healthy lifestyles and tackles inequities, protects against environmental hazards, diseases, and emergencies, and manages the quality, efficiency, and access to healthcare. There are six public health systems addressing different needs and issues. One of the systems is local authorities which are directors of public health, health, and well being boards; community level housing, education, and environment. The environment includes things like roads, housing, and classrooms. It tackles health issues in a non-clinical way. The public health priorities are to tackle health inequalities, mental health issues, obesity, non-communicable diseases or NCDs, ageing population, anti microbial resistance, and the Covid 19 legacy. Mental health is high on the list, because there is more awareness on the subject. They have found that one in four adults experience mental health illness each year and is the leading cause of disability. Education has a big impact on mental health that can be either positive or negative. 

Education can allow students to socialize, exercise their minds, and provide structure. However, instead education can often cause students to burn out, experience social isolation or bullying, and or lack of autonomy. Many schools are implementing more programs to help with students’ mental health. Schools, such as Birmingham City University, often have services such as access to mental health counselors. Each student is coming from different circumstances that impact their mental health. This can be also known as social determinants of health. Social determinants of health are conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work, and age. These are shaped by the distribution of money, power, and resources at global, national, and local levels. As an educator it is important to understand and value both equity and equality. Equity is when people receive resources or treatment based on need, while equality is everyone receiving the same resource or treatment. Education can be a way to lead change in society and help the future generation solve current issues in society. This can help with Public health and knowledge on these topics.

Promoting health within the education system is important and helps create change. This can lead to children telling their parents and therefore educating them on health. It also helps children to know this information for themselves and helps the future generations. Health education should be tailored depending on social, ethnic, and various age groups. Another way to push for change is through programs. Programs have shown to make change, such as the diabetes prevention program which has led to a 26% reduction rate. Taking these measures to educate the public through schools and programs can lead to real change. Later in the day we went on a walking black history tour. This included walking around the city, stopping at statues and buildings and talking about the history behind them. Marcia was our guide and she told us it is important to acknowledge history on how it used to be represented and what knowledge we have now. Some statues show men who are now known to be racists and have done morally wrong things. However, now there is not just the original statue and sign, there is also a newer sign beside it that elaborates on those things. There are many businesses that benefited from the oppression of others. One is the Lloyd bank which is linked to the transatlantic slave trade and is still in use today, however now supports black history. 

Marcia stressed that it is important to acknowledge that Africans were not the only ones to experience oppression. Women, children, and the Irish were also subjected to harsh treatment that can be seen represented throughout the city. Many aspects used to be left out of education and the experience from minority groups was often ignored or removed from school curriculums. Now, schools are beginning to prioritize teaching history from not only one perspective, but many. It is important for future teachers to be aware of various aspects of history, what is included and what is left out. If there is information being left out, what is the reason for that? Today we all learned a lot of information from various lectures and the tour. We were able to experience Jamaican cuisine and afterwards me and other students got Gelato for the first time.