Becca Yanniello, author of A Kids Book About Public Health, talks about how public health work makes our lives safer and healthier every day.
Becca Yanniello, author of A Kids Book About Public Health, talks about how public health work makes our lives safer and healthier every day.
A Kids Book About Public Health (view book)
Full Book Description:
Public health is a super important thing that very few people know by name! But all of that will change when you open this book. Learn about what public health is, why it’s so important (ever heard of seatbelts? Bike helmets? Smoke detectors?), and how public health work makes our lives safer and healthier every day!
About the Author:
Becca (she/her) is a public health professional devoted to improving the health of populations, big and small. She holds a master’s in public health from UCLA and a bachelor of arts in psychology from the University of Southern California. She is an avid traveler and lifelong learner. But most importantly, she is a mother of 2 beautiful kids.
*If you want to be on a future episode of A Kids Book About: The Podcast or if you have a question you’d like us to consider, have a grownup email us at listen@akidsco.com and we’ll send you the details.
A Kids Book About: The Podcast
Becca Talks About Public Health
[INTRODUCTION]
Matthew: What is public health?
Julia: Um, I don't know.
Becca: Public health is a field of science. Essentially, it involves helping people be healthy, stay healthy, and improve their health.
I would also say public health focuses on big groups of people instead of just individuals and the places that they live. So, looking at people in communities, cities, states, countries, and the whole world.
Matthew: Welcome to A Kids Book About: The Podcast! I’m Matthew. I’m a teacher, a librarian, and I’m your host.
The voices you heard just a moment ago were from Julia and Becca.
Each week we talk about the big things going on in your world with a different author from our A Kids Book About series.
Becca: Hi, my name is Becca Yanniello. I'm a public health professional, traveler, foodie, and mom. I am the author of A Kids Book About Public Health.
[TOPIC FOUNDATION]
Matthew: Public health. Public. Health.
Now what could that mean?
Public means that it’s accessible to everyone, right? And health means it’s providing something to protect or care for you and others.
Becca, what are some of the services that fall under the label of public health?
Becca: Public health is a really big umbrella and it covers a really wide range of things. Public health includes research, includes laws and policies, services, health education, science communication, and so much more.
Public health looks at all of the industries and parts of our society that impact our health in different ways. And there are a ton of things that impact our health. Everything from what's in our environment, making sure we have clean water, clean air, parks and playgrounds, safe communities to work and go to school and play in, to studying how diseases spread, to whether every community has access to medical care.
So there are so many things under the umbrella. And that's one of the reasons why I wanted to make this book to kind of help people understand how all of these things fit together.
Matthew: Wow. The evidence of the public health system at work is… everywhere. And, if that’s the case, then who benefits from public health, listeners?
Yep! You’ve got it!
Becca: Everyone. Literally everyone benefits from public health. And when public health work is doing its job, everybody is safer and healthier.
I will also say public health supports people throughout their lives, from babies to older adults and everyone in between. So public health is there to help everyone.
Matthew: And not only is public health there to help everyone… Public health is everywhere.
Becca: Public health is on all continents and in all countries. Some countries have more resources and more policies and rules in place than others, but everywhere in the world there is an understanding that supporting people and being healthy and protecting people's health is important for society, for families, for communities, and for the world.
So it is everywhere, it just looks a little bit different in different places.
Matthew: Okay. So… public health is everywhere. It involves many, many different types of industries. And it benefits everyone.
But, so… how does it work?
Becca: So, in order for public health to work, it requires everyone to follow the rules and the regulations and the policies that are put in place to keep people safe and healthy. That includes businesses and companies, and governments. And sometimes those rules aren't popular at first, but over time people get used to them and then they become like second nature.
So the example I think of is seatbelts. So when cars were first on the road, there were no seatbelts. But now we get in our cars today and we don't even think twice. We just buckle our seatbelts and buckle up. And driving cars is much safer now because of that rule.
I think at a fundamental level, in order for public health to really work at its best, it requires everyone to respect each other's right to be healthy and to think of other people, because sometimes we do things for the benefit of everyone, even if it's a little bit inconvenient sometimes.
Matthew: Unfortunately, even though public health seeks to serve everyone, there are still barriers that keep people from accessing the help they need.
Becca: You know, there are a lot of places in the world. where people don't even have access to the most basic things that we take for granted in our country and in our society, like having access to clean water, having running water, being able to have water in your own home, you know, access to hospitals. There are places where they don't have ambulances, and what it takes to be healthy in those places looks very different. When people don't have the basic things that they need, it's hard to reach their full potential.
Matthew: Becca also emphasized that staying healthy is not just about not getting sick. It’s about taking care of our mental health as well. Our emotions, our stress, and so on.
Becca: I think we don't talk enough about the importance of our mental health as part of our overall health, and mental and physical health are really connected, and they're both really important, and they can impact each other. And so even experiencing stress can impact our physical health. And sometimes even reducing stressful things in life can improve people's health. And public health looks at those kinds of things. You have to think a little bit outside the box about what is making people sick or what is keeping people healthy or what can we change to help people be healthier.
Matthew: Let’s take a quick break. And when we return, Becca will give us three questions to help guide us toward the expansion of public health and work ensuring that everyone can have access to resources to keep them healthy.
Becca: It really boils down to feeling hopeful and feeling inspired. Hopeful because... we are so fortunate to have so many resources in this country to be as healthy as we can be and hopeful because there are a lot of really smart people doing a lot of great work in our communities to help us. To help us be healthy.
And I think inspired because there's so much more work to be done. There's so much more work to be done to give everybody a chance to be healthy and feel their best.
Right now, not everyone has access to the things that can protect their health and help them be healthy And I'm inspired to keep working on that issue.
Matthew: We’ll be back in just a moment.
[BREAK]
Matthew: Welcome back.
Today on the podcast we’re talking about public health with A Kids Book About author Becca Yanniello. Becca includes a series of questions in A Kids Book About Public Health that I found so helpful for discussing this topic, so I thought we could share them here and discuss them together.
From A Kids Book About Public Health, “Health disparities exist everywhere in the world. Did you know that where you live can impact your health just as much (or more!) as your genes? An important role of public health is to research these disparities, understand them, find their cause, and address them head on.
So, how do we talk about this with kids? Start by asking:
Why is it important for everyone to have an equal chance to be healthy?
What do you think it takes to be healthy and feel our best?
How can we make that possible for everyone?”
So, let’s chat!
Listeners, I’ll ask you each of those three questions we just mentioned. Take your time thinking about your response to each. Share with a grownup, a sibling, or a friend. You can also think the answers to yourself, or share them aloud with me. I may not be able to hear you, but I promise that I am always listening. In the meantime, we’ll hear from Julia and Becca.
Question number one: Why is it important for everyone to have an equal chance to be healthy?
Julia: Because then if some people are not healthy then that would be bad I feel like.
[PERSONAL CONNECTION TO TOPIC]
Becca: I posed that question because I think it really requires a lot of thinking in order to answer. And I thought really hard about how to answer that myself, actually. So, my answer is that giving people an equal chance to be healthy is about being fair and respecting every human being and treating people equally.
There's a term in public health we use for it, and that is health equity. I believe that everyone in our country and around the world has… should have the basic things they need to be healthy, regardless of how much money you have, or the color of your skin, or your gender, or if you have a disability, or anything else that makes people different.
Our society is based on the idea that there are basic human rights that everyone should have. And I believe having the opportunity to be healthy is one of them. When we know how to help people and give them access to those things, I believe we have an obligation to help and to do that. And not taking action means that society is treating some people differently and better than others, and that's not fair.
Matthew: Next question: What do you think it takes to be healthy and feel our best?
Julia: Like, eat fruits and vegetables.
Becca: This is another question that is a little tough to answer because one of the beautiful things about public health is it recognizes that there are so many different things that it takes. to be healthy.
Some of the basic things, the easy things to think of are having clean air to breathe, clean water, healthy food, medicine, and healthcare when we need it, having safe places to live and to play.
I think it also means having information to be able to make healthy choices and have education available to us. And also just not having things around that can hurt us. I think it really, that, that means a lot of different things. It could mean having neighborhoods that are safe. It could mean not being exposed to things at school or at work or in our communities that might make us sick.
The other thing I want to add is that I think mental health is also a priority. in being healthy overall, and I think understanding that how we feel mentally impacts our overall health is also really important.
Matthew: For our last question, think about what you shared that it takes to be healthy and feel our best. With your response in mind, here’s question number three: How can we make that possible for everyone?
Julia: You could tell people to eat fruits and vegetables. Oh. And you can tell them how fruits and vegetables are really healthy for them.
Becca: There are so many things that we can and need to do to make this possible for everyone. I think the field of public health exists so that we can make this happen or possible for everyone. And there are many ways that we can go about that, but I think it really starts with learning. Learning about all of the different things that contribute to our health and can impact our health. Learning about who needs help with those things. And then paying attention to the world around you and noticing what could be better. And then, honestly, speaking up. Saying something about what should change.
And you don't have to know how to fix it, but you need to speak up and tell people whose job it is to fix it. And it really does not take being a scientist to do that. I think anyone can. And, a lot of times, the people making decisions are not able to see what everyday people see in their lives and in their communities. And so I think in order to make this possible for everyone, it takes all of us recognizing the things around us that are helping us or maybe hurting us and speaking up and trying to do something about it.
Matthew: Our time’s almost up. I’m about to send you back out into the world. So let’s take a moment to consider how we can use this knowledge we gained together to help look out for the people with whom we share this world: our friends, our classmates, our family, our community.
Becca? Are there any actions we, the listeners, can take to promote the expansion of public health to include those who might not currently be served?
Becca: In our country, public health is already serving everyone, whether or not they realize it. To your point, there's still a lot of work to do. I think the world around us is changing all the time. And so we have to keep identifying new issues that come up and new ways to help people.
We also have to pay attention to the inequalities and really work to address them. And I think that's kind of part of the question that you asked is, you know, the truth is that not everybody is as healthy as they could be. And there's more that we can do as a society to support them. And public health is working on it, it just takes a lot. There are so many different factors at play and it takes a lot of folks working together to make change.
Again, I think the most important thing is to notice what's going on around us and what the differences are. So, you know, for example, some neighborhoods and some communities have more liquor stores than grocery stores. Some groups of people have less access to doctors that speak their language.
So identifying and noticing some of those disparities, what we call disparities in public health, is the first thing. We have to acknowledge them and acknowledge that there's something that can be done and then work with people across society to address them and to help make those changes.
But again, I think, you know, the beauty of public health is that it involves so many different sectors of our society, like so many different people and so many different figures. And so it takes working together.
[CLOSING]
Matthew: Thank you to Becca Yanniello, author of A Kids Book About Public Health, for joining us today. And special thanks to Julia for lending their voice to this episode.
Julia: Hi, my name is Julia. I'm eight years old and I live in Ellicott City, Maryland.
Matthew: A Kids Book About: The Podcast is written, edited, and produced by me, Matthew Winner. Our executive producer is Jelani Memory.
And this show was brought to you by A Kids Co.
Follow the show wherever podcasts are found and check out other podcasts made for kids just like you by visiting akidsco.com.
Join us next time for a conversation about being an introvert with A Kids Book About authors Amy Taylor and Josh Maynard.