What complex problem or social issue was most significant to you this year and why? How did you go about learning more? What are your goals and next steps around this complex problem or social issue?

From the past year, the social issue that I have found to be the most significant to me is healthcare disparities. After experiencing healthcare overseas as well as working as a patient care assistant in a U.S. hospital, I have realized just how different but prevalent the gaps are overseas as well as the U.S. The nonprofit I interned for, Social Action for Children and Women (SAW) travels around the Phro Phra area in Mae Sot Thailand to give health education workshops to displaced refugee populations. I learned that many of these populations were not at all educated on topics such as sexually transmitted diseases, reproductive health, and good hygiene practices. It taught me how important not just the funding but the education of these subjects are. If we are able to target more populations like this and offer services which properly educate, we could focus on preventative healthcare instead of treating patients after they have already been diseased. As a patient care assistant my second semester of junior year, I was able to personally witness how U.S. hospitals are run. Some of my observations included understaffing issues, old or broken healthcare equipment which made treatment unproductive or slow, and wasteful, unsustainable hospital supplies. This brings me to my other big concern, this obessession of capitalism in the U.S. Like many other businesses, hospitals are run as a business with a primary purpose to make good money. There are many issues of this, one that it incentivizes the reliance on pharmaceutical drugs instead of preventative and integrative healthcare. Integrative healthcare is the idea of using lifestyle modifications such as diet, exercise, and meditation to treat or prevent disease. However, many people are often reliant on a medication to fix their health issues. Not only is this expensive for the patient, but potentially building a reliance on that drug. However, the big pharmaceutical industry and hospital is satisfied, because they can sell and administer more of this drug to make more money. What can we do about these healthcare disparities which primarily affect minorities and impoverished populations? Education. With properly administered publicly accessible education, people would be able to learn how to prevent themselves from reaching a point in which they are reliant on medication. Secretly however, these pharmaceutical companies do not want people to be properly educated in order to keep them as their patients. This is the ugly truth about healthcare and we need to bring to light this issue.