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Statement of Purpose

My interest in studying public health is rooted in the experiences I had growing up, which provided me a unique example of how peace and justice influence the health of the community. My initial encounters with social injustice occurred on my daily walks to and from grammar school on which my mother accompanied me. In one of the most racially diverse neighborhoods in Chicago, Albany Park was a milieu of immigrants from Latin American and Africa living in overcrowded and unkempt flats of live-away landlords. At the time, the street gang known as the Stones was well established in the area, though territory breaches were common by the rival Latin Kings that more than once led to bloodshed on the steps of the Church that stood next to my school. By the time I had reached high school, my mother had completed her nursing degree and was able to send me to an all girls Catholic school on the far north side of the city. During my first year of study, my grandfather died of smoking-induced cancer, my uncle was killed in a pre-Christmas robbery near our home and my best friend became pregnant. Unknowingly, I was personally experiencing some of the central topics of public health research and each of these events has continued to resonate throughout my life. In an effort to seek novelty, I chose a college that not a single person I knew was attending and packed up for New Orleans. Like Chicago, New Orleans oozes with the stink of fermenting inequalities from years past. City mansions of prosperous plantation owners line the streets shaded by live oak trees drawing visitors into images of the past. Unlike Chicago, however, New Orleans has yet to develop an arm of infrastructure or commerce that would lend a hand to residents reaching for the prosperity of the technological age. As an outsider, scummy situations clearly rooted themselves in racism and class. As a sorority reject, I passed the time volunteering as a mentor at a low-ranking African American elementary school down the block from my university. Days spent with my little sister Caline, season my memory of college and are accompanied by the warm feeling that I felt recently when she informed me that she would be attending college and that she couldnt have done it without me. Despite an isolated community of violence and negative images, one act of guidance propelled a young girl into a realm of higher education and increased earning potential, which are both closely related to improved health and increased length of life. After I transferred back home to Chicago to complete college, social justice more clearly found its way into my concept of social wellbeing as I volunteered teaching adults to read at the community center and went on an immersion trip to El Salvador. I took a part-time job at the American Lung Association fighting for smoke-free legislation at the state and local level. We were understaffed and I found myself in the offices of Chicagos aldermen arguing my case. As time went on, my tactics became more refined as did my ability to build and properly utilize a coalition. I realized that through advocacy efforts and policy change, I could not only influence the trajectory of one young girl, I could impact the lives of literally millions of people. The passage of Smoke-Free Chicago and Smoke-Free Illinois fueled my desire to seek social change and focused that desire acutely on public health. At the University of Chicago I studied the healthcare system in the context of social justice and gained experience working in diverse settings with diverse populations. I have worked for three different hospitals and served numerous disenfranchised groups including incarcerated African American youth, older adults, Latino Americans, undocumented immigrants, disabled individuals, people living with AIDS, impoverished foreign nationals, and the uninsured population. Each of these experiences shaped my understanding of community health and encouraged me to seek to change the way health and healthcare is socially constructed.

After moving to North Carolina, I took a job at Firsthealth of Carolinas where I serve as the Community Health Analyst. In this position I track the demographics of program participants, the utilization of subsidized programs and the health outcomes of those that complete our programs. I then compare this data to regional and state data to assess our progress and determine the effectiveness of our programs based on evaluation criteria I help to determine. With the encouragement of my supervisor, I seek admission to the certificate program in epidemiology. Additional training in the fundamentals of epidemiology would improve the quality of my work and surely impact the low-income communities of Moore, Richmond, Montgomery and Hoke counties, which I serve. I believe that increasing the amount of quality research on determinants of health and health trends will further demonstrate the need for policy change and improve the lives of many Americans. Though I have received all of my degrees in the arts, I have had exposure to mathematics all throughout my education. I have had a traditional education with International Baccalaureate and honors mathematics classes in high school where I studied Algebra I, II, Geometry, Trigonometry, and Integrated Mathematics, which included the prior mentioned course materials as well as some calculus. In college I took introductory mathematics courses as well as statistics. In graduate school, I studied statistics, research methods, economics and decision analysis. While I have not formally taken an on-line course, I have substantial experience in Internet communication. Many of my college and graduate classes relied heavily on the Internet to distribute course readings and assignments, engage in discussion of literature via online forums, organize group projects, and post professor feedback. I have always worked, participated in clubs and volunteered while attending school. I believe I have the experience necessary to manage a full-time job and part-time class schedule. I will continue to work during the week, and I will utilize my evenings and weekends to complete my school work. With proper planning and time management, I believe I can make the most of my time and succeed in both work and school. If unanticipated challenges arise, I have exceptional support systems both at work and at home that will be available to assist me. While I anticipate self-growth from participating in the online certification course, I believe that my experiences will be an asset to other course participants as well. Being trained in social work has provided me with a social justice perspective on health and healthcare in the United States. I believe I will be able to provide insight on the importance of providing valid and reliable means of measuring health indicators and health outcomes toward the goal of improved health for all through comprehensive yet efficient prevention and education programs targeting at risk communities.

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